Last year after the ASCO meeting in Chicago I declared that there was one particular presentation of the CHAARTED trial that would be a game changer for the treatment of newly diagnosed men with very significant prostate cancer. The game changer was that men diagnosed with significant disease and who were still ADT naive (not [...]
CT scans are often performed in the process of monitoring of advanced prostate cancer disease progression. One of the most serious impacts of advanced prostate cancer is spinal compression, which can lead to paralysis and significant pain. Being able to use the CT scan as a red flag warning about potential spinal cord compression could [...]
There is more evidence that the blood test used to count the number of cells circulating in the blood and shed from prostate tumors (circulating tumor cells or CTCs) can indicate whether a treatment is working or not working. A major new study showed that the number of these circulating tumor cells in the blood [...]
Immunotherapy has a major and expanding role in the treatment of cancer, including advanced prostate cancer. Over time there have been a number of naysayers as the immunotherapy Provenge has played the role whipping boy by critics. The common criticism leveled at Provenge can be summed up simply, “It doesn’t work.” The plain truth is [...]
One of the more difficult problems faced by some men treated with surgery as their primary treatment modality is post-prostatectomy incontinence (PPI). PPI can affect the quality of life for both men successfully treated as well as those who go on and eventually develop advanced prostate cancer. One of the more common, but last efforts [...]
Before I get into the meat of today’s post about enzalutamide, I want to briefly make some personal comments about my absence from this blog. As I had mentioned I have been diagnosed with a fifth primary cancer, appendiceal cancer. It is a rare cancer, which required my having to remove my appendix, a piece [...]
President Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget eliminates all funding for the Centers for Disease Control prostate cancer program. Congress has the power to protect the CDC Prostate Cancer program. We ask for your advocacy to protect this life saving program. Please go to http://malecare.org/cdc There, you will find a sample letter, which you are welcome to copy whole or [...]
It was announced today that preliminary results from the Phase II STAND trial demonstrates continued and what is described as a robust immune response with Provenge (sipuleucel-T) that continues two years after completing treatment in men with biochemically-recurrent prostate cancer (BRPC). This finding, along with data from the ongoing Phase IV registry PROCEED trial, are [...]
Between 2011 and 2013, the proportion of men diagnosed with intermediate- or high-risk prostate cancer, increased by 3% per year. Thank you members of the United States Preventive Services Task Force for realy blowing it and tapping in the nail into the coffins of American men. In a preliminary study the authors estimate that this [...]
There is some really exciting news on the horizon around immunotherapy for advanced prostate cancer. Bavarian Nordic, the pharmaseutical company that has, along with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), been running clinical trials on Prostvac has unoffically let it been known that Prostvac when combined with another investigational immunologic therapy, Yervoy, has helped to significantly [...]
