The newest gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist therapy drug, degarelix (aka Firmagon) has become more commonly used in everyday clinical practice as an alternative hormone therapy treatment drug (ADT). Given that its use has become common it is important to understand both its safety and efficacy as compared to our older standard drugs. The best way [...]
It is a little out of the normal scope of this blog, but a recent prostate cancer study from Canada has received a lot of buzz and needs some commentary and analysis. The study concluded that for men who are diagnosed with local prostate cancer (still confined in the gland) live longer if they have [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Clinical trials have shown that there is an overall survival and radiographic progression-free survival benefit derived from abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) in the treatment of men with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). A new retrospective study published online, ahead of print, shows this trend is true regardless of a man's Gleason score at diagnosis, despite [...]
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 [...]
Go to any support group meeting and you are almost sure to hear someone, usually a new member of the group, ask about what they might do to lower their risk of having their prostate cancer progress or even lower their risk of dying from the prostate cancer. Among the common answer to this question [...]
Approximately 2 years ago Malecare and the New York State Prostate Coalition began asking questions about where the State of New York was hiding approximately $3,000,000 in funding for prostate cancer research. Each year New York State residents are asked to check off a little box on their state tax return donating an additional dollar [...]
Understanding how to best sequence and combine our new drugs to treat advanced prostate cancer includes the most discussed issue, efficacy. We want to know if a special order or a special combination of the approved drugs will nake a difference in both our quality of life (QoL) as well as how survival. Often [...]
