Yesterday I wrote about using Keto (HDK) along with HC as a secondary hormone suppressant after traditional hormone blockades have failed to work. The reviews of HDK has been mixed with some doctors shying away from it because of its potential liver toxicity issues. However, for many men fighting advanced prostate cancer HDK is an [...]
Ketoconazole (kee-ta-KOE-na-zol), generic name for Nizoral, is an oral drug approved by the FDA for the use to treat fungal infections. However, it has been shown that higher doses of ketoconazole (800-1200mg/day vs 200-400mg/day) also block the production of both free and bound testosterone. Since high-dose Ketoconazole (HDK) has testosterone lowering effects, operating both on [...]
Oh no, another not so very clear issue for men with prostate cancer has emerged! According to an article written by Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times, bisphosphonates (i.e. Fosamax), has been reported, in some rare occasions, to actually cause weaker bones that lead to an unusual type of fracture of the femur. Bisphosphonates [...]
According to Philip M. Arlen, M.D., director of the Clinical Research Group for the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology, Center for Cancer Research, at the National Cancer Institute, "Vaccines, if and when they are approved, can be safely and effectively combined with other therapies, including hormones. There appears to be an advantage in overall [...]
Health care reimbursement rates from insurance companies and Medicare drive many of our medical decisions in the United States. Call me a liberal, but I do believe that health care is a right, not a privilege and that financial decisions should NOT play a role in the decisions about what is best for patients. However, [...]
You are scheduled for chemotherapy (Taxotere if you are being treated for prostate cancer) in a few days, so you stop eating until you complete the therapy session! This scenario could become typical in future treatment protocols. Published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was a study that found that starving [...]
Common practice is to treat men with advanced prostate cancer with androgen inhibition therapy (ADT) with or without antiandrogens (Casodex). Most of our prostate cancer will progress and develop into androgen-independent prostate cancer despite our achieving castrate testosterone levels. Dutasteride, a 5-alfa-reductase inhibitor, is commonly used in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Additional, [...]
Highlights of the advance prostate cancer session meeting in Orlando, Florida included Abstract 531 which evaluated 6,437 men who had received androgen deprivation therapy for more than 1.5 years. According to the abstract Dementia and COPD were the main non-GU side effects associated with long-term androgen deprivation. Presented by Ziya Kirkall, MD, at the Annual [...]
When I returned from the conference (see yesterday’s post) I kept seeing notices and announcements from a new retrospective study out of John;s Hopkins that showed that men with prostate cancer tumors that recur after prostate cancer surgery are three times more likely to survive their disease long term if they undergo radiotherapy within two [...]
During radiation and chemotherapy, cancer patients including prostate cancer patients, should avoid the routine use of antioxidant supplements unless approved by their doctor. Supplements may reduce the anticancer benefits of therapy, researchers concluded in a commentary published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Radiation and Taxotere used for advanced prostate cancer therapy [...]
