NICE, which serves as a cost-effectiveness agency has said in a draft guidance that it supports the use of Xtandi (enzalutamide) in men whose prostate cancer has spread after the failure of first-line therapy (i.e. ADT), but for whom chemotherapy is not yet necessary. The agency found that Xtandi can delay the need for chemotherapy, [...]
Currently, there are a number of different treatments used to treat recurrent prostate cancer when the primary treatment had radiation has failed. In this situation surgery is considered very difficult and can only be successfully performed by an experienced surgeon, so alternative treatments are often considered. Long-term data about the success of these alternative treatments [...]
Many cancer treatments have the potential to impact your overall quality of life (QoL). Before making any decision to use a treatment it is important to understand what might be the possible impacts of the treatment not only on the disease, but also on your life. Impacts could be positive or they could be negative. [...]
I have talked a lot about our need to take the next step in clinical care, understanding the best sequencing of our drugs. Since we have a number of new drugs to treat advanced prostate cancer we now need to better understand which drugs should be used in which men as well as their proper [...]
New information about a possible bad side effect of hormone therapy (ADT) for men with prostate cancer was just published and it is frightening for men on hormone therapy (ADT). The findings are a result of a joint study conducted by researchers at Penn University Medicine with researchers from Stanford University. What is it that [...]
Understanding a little about the prostate gland and its biology is not only interesting, but it allows us to ask some important questions that can positively inform our treatment decisions and eventually the outcomes. On the other hand, it also can add to the confusion we all face in making the best clinical decisions. Like [...]
Once a clinical trial has been completed, especially when the trial is positive, researchers will “data mine” the published information. The published results provide additional opportunities to evaluate the data in different ways than the trial was originally designed. This new data can be very interesting and informative, however it also needs to be considered [...]
Researchers are now beginning to understand which men with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) might be helped by radium-223 (Xofigo), and for which men Xofigo will be a waste of time and money, and possibly cause harm. They have found that baseline ECOG performance status, alkaline phosphatase (ALP), hemoglobin (Hb) levels, and the concomitant use of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) [...]
On October 27, 2015, Malecare was issued patent 9,168,002 for a device and method for real time simultaneous measurement of radiation at specific parts of your body,. Understanding cumulative radiation exposure in people undergoing ionizing radiation for diagnostics and medical treatment is essential towards reducing secondary tumors from primary radiation therapy. We believe that the [...]
We have become very fortunate over the last 6 years because our arsenal of potential drugs to treat advanced, metastatic prostate cancer has grown. All of our new drugs extend life and most offer palliation of pain. As I have discussed in prior posts we are still in a quandary about how best to sequence [...]
