Lack of PSA Decline as an Independent Predictor of Biochemical Failure Post Salvage Radiation Therapy

It would be of great advantage to us if we were able to improve the early detection of responders to salvage external beam radiotherapy (RT) after failed radical prostatectomy (RP). Early detection would allow us to make earlier treatment decisions which should provide for better results. In an attempt to better improve our understanding of [...]

Long-term Survival of Extremely Advanced Prostate Cancer Patients Diagnosed with PSA over 500 ng/ml

It is generally believed that combination hormone therapy (ADT 2, 3 or 4) is superior to mono-therapy (with just one drug). With this in mind researchers investigated the survival of hormone-naïve prostate cancer survivors diagnosed with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) over 500 ng/ml. They extracted data of prostate cancer survivors from the Japan Study Group of [...]

Nadir PSA Levels and Time to Achieving Nadir Are Significant Prognostic Factors

Hormone therapy or Primary androgen deprivation therapy (PADT) is the usual first “go to” therapy for men when they are diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer whether it is a primary diagnosis or the result of a recurrence. The natural progression of the disease is to become unresponsive to the treatment (castrate resistant) leading to a [...]

Startling Fact: PSA Testing Frequency Changes PSA Doubling Time – A Time Honored Surrogate Biomarker is Not Valid!

In our quest to understand our prostate cancer we have developed many “measures” of our disease aggressiveness and progression.  Many of these measures are generally accepted has valid, but many have never been validated. One example is the prognostic nature of PSA Doubling Time (PSADT) in men with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer (BRPC or PSA [...]

Why and How to Graph Your PSA Scores

The best way to understand your PSA kinetics, especially its changes, is to be able to visualize them on a graph. This allows you to understand significant changes in our PSA earlier on than you might otherwise perceive them. Any man whether diagnosed with prostate cancer or not should be recording their PSA scores and [...]

Metastatic Prostate Cancer Mortality Rates Unchanged – But Fewer Men Are Becoming Metastatic

The PSA controversy continues to plague men’s health. The United States Preventive Task Force’s recommendation against using the PSA blood test as a screening tool for prostate cancer (PCa) will bring additional harms to men. Since the beginning of PSA testing the mortality rate from prostate cancer has declined significantly, but there has been no [...]

Using Circulating Tumor Cells as a Prognostic Tool – Better than PSA

Better prediction tools to predict treatment outcome in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) should significantly improve treatment outcomes. Without good predictive measures we often don't know when is the optimum time to stop a therapy and move to another. This means that we might maturely stop an effective treatment losing the effectiveness of [...]

Prostate Cancer Comes In Many Flavors, Some Rare, Hard to Diagnosis and Aggressive

Prostate cancer is not just one disease; in reality there are several different types of prostate cancer, which will look different under a microscope and behave differently in your body.  In addition to the more common types of prostate cancer there are also several kinds of rare cancers that can develop in the prostate. Prostate [...]

Testosterone Therapy Produces Mixed Results in Post-Surgical Men with Prostate Cancer

Many men, after they have had a radical prostatectomy, find that their testosterone levels are low and are desirous of supplementing their testosterone. (This low level of testosterone is not a result of the surgery). One way of supplementing androgens is by transdermal testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT), but TRT also has the undesirable effect of increasing [...]

Salvage Radio Therapy Extends Life Without Regard to PSA Doubling Time

Researchers at Duke University observed a survival benefit for men who had salvage radiation therapy (RT) for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure after radical prostatectomy (RP) in the men who experience a rapid rises in PSA doubling time (DT,< 6 months). They then asked whether such a benefit also exits in men with a protracted PSA [...]

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