How often have I said that when you are diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer or when you experience a recurrence you need to move on to a specialist, a medical oncologist who specializes in the treatment of men with advanced prostate cancer? It is easier and more comfortable to stay with the known doctor, the [...]
The simple answer is NO, however it should change your treatment game plan. A member of one of my support groups who has been doing active surveillance for about 5 years recently reported that their current biopsy indicated that they now have perineural invasion (PNI). They did not understand what was the significance of [...]
My friend and colleague, Richard Wassersug published an article on April 4, 2013 on the on-line service, Uro-Today.com, about the lack of reliability on internet sites when they discuss hormone therapy. Dr. Wassersug is a Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Dalhousie University, Canada. His research interests include the Psychosocial impact of [...]
First, I must apologize for having ignored the blog over the last two weeks. I have been intensely focused on the launch of a new project that we at Malecare have been developing. It has managed to take up every available second of my time. At this moment, I am not able to describe much [...]
An alternative to standard hormone therapy (ADT) using luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) analogs like leuprolide (Lupron®, Eligard®), goserelin (Zoladex®), triptorelin (Trelstar®), and histrelin (Vantas®) for men with advanced prostate cancer, but often not used is estradiol (a form of estrogen). When estrogens were first used as a therapy for men with advanced prostate cancer they [...]
Today, I am going to make a little change in my post. Instead of discussing additional ASCO Conference abstracts of interest to men with advanced prostate cancer (I will come back to them in short order), I want to respond to the latest public outrage that has been in the media. A recent story has [...]
Ra-223 (Alpharadin)is an alpha-pharmaceutical targeting bone metastases (mets) with high-energy, short-range (< 100 ?m) alpha-particles. Currently it has been submitted to the FDA for approval, which we hope will happen by August 2013. In the phase 3, double-blind, randomized, multinational ALSYMPCA study, Ra-223 significantly improved overall survival (OS) in men with castrate resistant advanced prostate [...]
Another interesting research abstract presented at the Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in Orlando Florida this month found that men with prostate cancer who were on chemotherapy who had also received anticoagulant (blood-thinners) medications experienced improved overall survival rates compared to men who did not take anticoagulants drugs. This retrospective study involved the reviewed of the medical [...]
There was a recent interview in the Pharma Strategy Blog with Dr. Bertrand Tombal , an academic urologist in Belgium. Dr. Tomal discussed several of the new advances in the treatment od advanced prostate cancer with an emphasis on the potential future of Enzalutamide (Xtandi). Like bicalutamide (Casodex), Xtandi works by blocking (inhibiting) testosterone from [...]
More on Sipuleucel-T (Provenge) from the 2013 The last two abstracts that I want to speak about that were presented at the conference that pertained to Provenge speak to its efficacy. The first looks at changes in circulating tumor cells (CTC) and the second to the onset of the use of opioid painkillers. Abstract #40 [...]
