Having prostate cancer and prostate cancer treatments may cause side effects that require the immediate attention of your doctor or health care team, but it is hard to know when to call the doctor as opposed to knowing when to let it ride. Infection It can even be difficult to know when all you have [...]
A Gleason Score of 7 is often looked at as a middle range score, but clearly not as serious as an 8 or 9 score. Some recently combined research performed at the Department of Urology, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, Washington and the Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research [...]
Provenge, a cancer vaccine, has demonstrated its ability to improve the survival of men with castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The developer, Dendreon, has submitted it latest clinical trial data to the FDA for approval. We hope to have an approval by mid-year 2010. Growth factors were thought to be potential targets for treating prostate [...]
Yesterday, November 11, 2009, I wrote that I appreciated knowing what my survival chances were after learning that I had a returning PSA, so I thought that this study was particularly relevant. At the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) conference, Dr. Buyyounouski and his colleagues from the Fox Chase Cancer Center reported on a [...]
The relatively new drug, denosumab, has proven itself very effective for men on a hormone blockade (ADT). In a recently completed 3-year, randomized, double-blind study at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, Massachusetts, denosumab significantly increased bone mineral density and decreased new vertebral fractures in men receiving ADT for the treatment of advanced prostate [...]
A very scary study has been published in the journal BMC Emergency Medicine. The study found that sixty percent of the causes of unintended incidents in the emergency department that could have compromised patient safety are related to human failures. Human failures mean that the doctors, nurses or even orderlies did do something or did [...]
A known fact is that between 15% to 35% of men who have surgery as their primary treatment after diagnosis of prostate cancer will experience a biochemical recurrence (BCR). The authors of a presentation, Michael B. Williams, MD, et al. presented at the American Urological Association Mid-Atlantic Section - 67th Annual Meeting - October 1 [...]
Concerned that your diabetes could making you more vulnerable to dying from prostate cancer? Yes, diabetes sufferers should be concerned about a potential shorter life span, but not as of a result of prostate cancer (CaP). In the Journal of Clinical Oncology (September 10, 2008), Dr. Matthew Smith and his colleagues reported on the association [...]
There have been a number of articles that claim that older cancer patients report less distress than younger cancer patients report. However, this research has generally not sorted the differences among general distress, anxiety, and depression in older vs. younger survivors. Elson CJ, Weinberger MI, Balk E, Holland J, Breitbart W, Roth AJ. From the [...]
A post-surgery increase of PSA (usually three increases) is the definition for a prostate cancer recurrence. The best response after these increases is to radiate the prostate bed in hopes for stopping any stray cancer cells that had escaped prior to surgery. Using salvage radiation is the only remaining treatment modality that might allow a [...]
