Findings from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) screening trial indicate that the strongest predictors of prostate cancer-specific mortality include Gleason 7, body mass index >30, African-American race, PSA level, stage, and high co-morbidity score. Understanding how non-tumor factors affect prostate cancer-specific mortality will help identify those men who may benefit from screening and [...]
Finasteride, which remains a controversial drug in the treatment of men with advanced prostate cancer, prolongs the time of off-treatment in men with advanced prostate cancer when they are using intermittent androgen suppression therapy (IAD). One of the questions not yet understood is whether this results from a true increase in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) doubling [...]
There has been a lot of questions raised about why the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) has out of the clear blue, launched a review of Provenge, a review that could ultimately make Provenge unavailable to men on Medicare and Medicaid (see the post:Medicare Funding for Provenge, We Urgently Need Your HELP). There [...]
Mike Scott who writes the THE “NEW” PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK today published an excellent summary/discussion about survival time for men with metastatic prostate cancer. He presents a synopsis about anticipated survival going back to the late 1980s and brings the conversation up to our current condition. He reminds us that our next big step will [...]
The use of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the primary treatment of prostate cancer will probably become more common in the very near future. HIFU has been used for many years in Europe and Mexico and has recently been in clinical trials in the United States. HIFU has been a successful method of prostate cancer [...]
Dr. Yang-Min Ning and collaborators reported, in the April 20, 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a Phase II trial which combined chemotherapy (docetaxel) with an anti-angiogenesis drug for men with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The data suggests that such a combination is more effective than chemotherapy alone. […]
Statin drugs improve blood cholesterol levels, but they also cause problems. They also seem to lower the risk of prostate cancer recurrences post surgery by as much as 30% according to researchers at Duke University. These findings are published in the journal Cancer. Stephen Freedland, M.D., a member of the Duke Prostate Center and the [...]
Yesterdays Wall Street Journal publish a very important piece by Melinda Beck in their Health Journal (http://tinyurl.com/2dtrrll) . Everyone should go to the piece and read it. The piece, The Prostate Cancer Quandary, has received some play in the prostate community, but its real importance to us has not yet been recognized by our community [...]
Those of us advanced prostate cancer survivors who are younger than 65 years and who live in the United States often face a major dilemma if we are unable to continue to work. Medicare will not provide us with medical insurance until we reach that magic age of 65 years. We can apply for social [...]
From Yahoo (posted today): Men and Women looking out for each other: * 43% of searches on Yahoo! Health for Prostate Cancer come from women * 33% of searches on Yahoo! Health for Breast Cancer come from men * 25% of searches on Yahoo! Health for Ovarian Cancer come from men * 38% of searches [...]
