I wanted to wish everyone a great Thanksgiving. Despite all the trials and tribulations we each must deal with we also must remember that we all have much to be thankful about. The fact that each of us have managed to reach this day is it self a gift worthy of our thanks. Sometimes it [...]
Yes, it is true, many clinical trial results are not published, especially negative results. This is even true for FDA approved drugs and treatments! Failing to publish, or actually hiding negative results and harmful side effects that occur in clinical trials is too common and jeopardizes each and everyone of us, including survivors of advanced [...]
Over this past week I have not been able to make any post to the blog. I apologize to anybody kept coming back to the blog and didn't see anything new. Two Sunday nights ago I was admitted to the hospital and had an emergency appendectomy the following Tuesday night. Due to my age and [...]
The drug Gabapentin is occasionally prescribed to help control hot flashes resulting from hormone deprivation therapy (ADT). Today, Aurobindo Pharma USA, Inc. issued a voluntary nationwide recall of their Northstar Labeled Gabapentin Capsules, USP 300 mg 100 count bottle. The recall was issued on complaints about empty capsules in prescriptions received by patients. There is [...]
In the normal course of events node-positive prostate cancer has typically been excluded from clinical trials. This leaves our oncologists with little evidence to guide the management for those of us who have this flavor of prostate cancer. A recent anaylisis presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress begins to shed [...]
Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and bone complications are the two near universals for men with advanced prostate cancer. A long-term follow up of fifteen (15) years after diagnosis of a population-based cohort of prostate cancer survivors proved to be very informative. The Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study, which enrolled 3533 men diagnosed with prostate cancer between [...]
Bayer Healthcare has announced that they will be resuming production of Xofigo® (radium Ra 223 dichloride) for new patients beginning on Monday, November 17th. Xofigo is the newly FDA approved radiopharmaceutical treatment for men with castrate resistant metastatic prostate cancer (mCRPC) with bone metastases without any known visceral metastases. On October 8, 2014 Bayer informed [...]
It was announced this morning that Dendreon (the manufactures of Provenge) has filed for voluntary Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. After having spoken with a representative at Dendreon I have learned that the company has been in negotiations with its creditors and agreed to voluntarily file for financial reorganization. The agreement that Dendreon has reached with their [...]
Sometimes scientific research is amazing! We are so lucky to have so many brilliant and gifted young people interested in conquering cancer. One of these brilliant young people is a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins, Andrew Wong. Mr Wong is a Ph.D. student studying materials science and engineering. Along with his facility advisor he has [...]
A large number of the readers of this blog either have had exposure to Agent Orange or have family members who have had the exposure. We know that for those men exposed their risks for developing prostate cancer are greatly increased. Besides an increased risk of developing the cancer there is evidence that Agent Orange [...]
