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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
It is important that survivors keep up on the professional standards of our doctors to make sure that we receive the best care and the most current care. It is easy for doctors to just do it the way they were first trained, even if their training was twentyor thirty years ago. Recent news includes [...]
I really thought we had gotten over this problem, but an article appearing in a recent report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates that the age old problem that often our doctors fail to supply adequate pain medications to advanced cancer survivors because a fear of drug addiction This attitude still hampers good survivorship [...]
Docetaxel is the only globally approved first-line chemotherapy for the treatment of castrate resistant prostate cancer. Yhe universal truth is that all men taking docetaxel will become refractory to the treatment. Zoledronic acid (ZA) is the most commonly used member of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate family. By itself it has anti-tumor activity, including in prostate cancer. In [...]
Much of my reporting about ASCO 2014 has included only positive studies, but there is always a share of studies and trials that do not prove to be of a direct positive value to men with Advanced Prostate Cancer. Today’s report includes one of these negative reports. Remember, a negative report is as valuable as [...]
Research released at the ASCO meeting in Chicago confirms that regular exercise is a must for men with advanced prostate cancer. It was found that a regular and structured physical exercise program reduces cytokine production which is related to depression and to the inflammatory processes. According to the researchers these factors may impact prostate cancer [...]
In my continuing reports about interesting and pertinent information released at the ASCO 2014 meeting one abstract described a phase 2 trial combining an attack on androgens in metastatic prostate cancer resistant to initial hormone therapy. This proof of concept study showed that combining Enzalutamide (Xtandi) plus abiraterone (Zytiga) drove down testosterone levels and appeared [...]
Current practice has been to immediately begin hormone therapy (ADT) as soon as a man has a bio-chemical (PSA only) relapse. A recent presentation at ASCO 2014 has shown that immediate ADT actually offers little or no survival benefit over deferred ADT to advanced prostate cancer survivors who experience a PSA only relapse after radical [...]
