Today’s New York Times had an article written by Jane Brody that discusses the painful issues surrounding the decision to stop treatment, and its negative side effects, and let a cancer survivor live their last weeks in relative peace. This is always a difficult decision as many of us wish to hold on to life, [...]
Last April HealthDay News ran an article about chemotherapy and patients fear about starting it. Most cancer survivors involved in a recent survey reported that they had been fearful of undergoing chemotherapy. The good news is that most also said the treatments were much less difficult than they had expected. The truly startling fact is [...]
A recent Finnish study released interim results comparing intermittent androgen deprivation (IAD) to continuous androgen deprivation (CAD) in 856 men. All the men had locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer and they all were treated at 27 clinics in Finland. The period of study was between 1997 and 2003 and all men were required to [...]
Dendreon Corporation (Nasdaq: DNDN), the company that is testing Provenge a potential vaccine for prostate cancer, has started a second of two new Phase 2 trials. The multicenter trial, called ProACT (PROstate Active Cellular Therapy), is enrolling 120 men with metastatic, androgen independent prostate cancer. The trial protocol calls for all men to receive active [...]
I want to tell you about a man named Joel who started hormone therapy (ADT) and could not remember who he was, or were he lived. He was brought up in born in New York City and lived the majority of his life in the city. He never took taxis, but almost always relied on [...]
Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:HEPH) has announced a new phase I/II clinical trial of Apoptone (HE3235) for late stage prostate cancer. Howard Scher, M.D., Chief of the Genitourinary Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said "The preclinical data generated to date suggest that Apoptone may offer a unique therapeutic approach to late-stage prostate cancer where [...]
Amgen just completed, with positive results, a three-year Phase 3 placebo-controlled trial which evaluated denosumab for the treatment of bone loss (reduction of bone mineral density –BMD) in men undergoing androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for non-metastatic prostate cancer. One of the more common and significant side effects of ADT is loss of BMD. This loss [...]
According to a study published April 16, 2008, regular exercise is the best way to manage cancer-related fatigue! Fatigue is a common problem for men with prostate cancer. It is also a common side effect of all the available prostate cancer treatments, both primary and secondary treatments. The most common advice we receive for coping [...]
It is my understanding that almost 90% of men who start hormone therapy initially respond to the drugs with their PSA falling significantly. However, there are many costs associated with ADT, many of which I have already discussed in this blog. The hot flashes, bone loss, weight gain, decreased libido and erectile dysfunction are often [...]
The last few days have seen a lot of commotion and celebrating in the prostate cancer world. There have been multiple news stories of an experimental prostate cancer drug, abiraterone, that has been reported to dramatically shrink prostate cancer tumors and extend survival in 70 to 80 percent of men with aggressive prostate cancer. Abiraterone [...]
