I have often had men recently diagnosed with advanced, metastatic prostate cancer call me and ask if surgery makes any sense for them to consider. I have never been sure how to respond given that their cancer is known to be already out of their gland. In response to this common question, researchers from the [...]
At the current AUA Annual Meeting going on in New Orleans, there was a presentation given by Haitao Zhang and colleagues. They described their work developing a novel blood-based assay (test) for detecting androgen receptor (AR) splice variants in men with advanced prostate cancer. Their work relies on the premise that AR-V7 expression underlies resistance [...]
A joint task force composed of members from the American Urological Association (AUA) and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has presented formal guidelines for the use of adjuvant and salvage radiation after a radical prostatectomy. To construct the Guideline they relied on a systematic review of the literature using the Pubmed, Embase and [...]
There was a lot of interesting and important presentations at the recent American Urological Association meeting, however the one item that will have the most impact on men with advanced prostate cancer is the new guidelines that were proposed for the treatment of men with castrate resistant prostate cancer. The guidelines were organized by creating [...]
Mortality prospects after a prostate cancer recurrences following a radical prostatectomy has always been assumed to be directly related to the early development of metastases. A study from Melbourne Australia indicates that men with low-risk prostate cancer have good mortality prospects even when they experience early biochemical recurrence. The first author of the study, Anthony [...]
A recently published article in Urology Times claims that salvage high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) appears to be an effective treatment option for locally recurrent prostate cancer after primary external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) failure. The study, which this article reported on, used data from analyses of 6-year oncologic outcomes show. When the researchers did a [...]
What are our goals as advanced prostate cancer survivors and what are the goals of our oncologists? Often they are not the same! This misalignment between our expectations and those of our clinicians is common, but inexcusable. These issues become clear when we look at issues surrounding our quality of life. The treatments for advanced [...]
A subgroup analysis of the phase III trials of Provenge (Sipuleucel-T) suggests that there might be a dramatic role for Provenge in African-American men who have advanced prostate cancer that has become castration-resistant (mCRPC). The analysis, which was released at the American Urological Association 2012 Annual Scientific Meeting, was headed up by Colonel David G. [...]
The recent AUA meetings in Atlanta had a number of interesting abstracts presented that concern men with advanced prostate cancer. Some of the more interesting abstracts were look back analysis of sipuleucel-T (Provenge) done by consultants for Dendreon, the company who manufactures Provenge. They took the data from the al three of the phase III [...]
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic recently announced results at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting from a long-term study that indicates that surgery can improve life expectancy for men with advanced prostate cancer. Their study shows that 80% of men who have advanced prostate cancer and still choose to have surgery survive for at [...]
