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PSA test reduces prostate cancer deaths by 40%

According to Skip Lockwood, CEO of ZERO – The Project to End Prostate Cancer, The American Cancer Society is a ‘false prophet’ when it comes to telling the truth about the effectiveness of the PSA test.”

Dr. William J. Catalona of Northwestern University, one of the nation’s leading experts on prostate cancer, commented “Although the PSA test is not perfect, it is effective in identifying men at high risk for prostate cancer and for detecting it early.”

Many experts think men should have a PSA test and examination because prostate cancer produces no symptoms until it’s too far advanced to cure, as appropriate.The PSA test, the most prevalent method in use today for prostate cancer, has saved thousands of lives. According to the American Cancer Society’s own data, usage of the PSA test, 90 percent of all prostate cancers are now discovered before they spread outside the gland Until an alternative exists, prostate cancer testing is the best option to allow men to make an informed decision.

Cigarette smoking may raise prostate cancer risk

Pooled data from 24 studies involving 21,600 men with the disease indicates that cigarette smoking may increase a man’s risk for developing and dying from prostate cancer.

This study provides good evidence that prostate cancer is likely a smoking-related tumour.

However, researchers call for additional sudies that quantifies how the number of packs and duration of smoking affects risk for developing the disease and its progression.

Reovirus may be a novel approach to prostate cancer treatment

According to study results, Canadian researchers have detected a novel oncolytic viral therapy against prostate cancer with use of a virus called the reovirus.

The respiratory, enteric, orphan virus (commonly known as reovirus) is a non-attenuated, environmental virus that has shown oncolytic potential against many types of cancer, specifically lymphoid, ovarian, breast, pancreatic and high grade glioma cancer, according to the study. This is the first time the virus has been studied against prostate cancer.

Research study was published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Research suggest therapy choice is influenced by physicians’ preferences

New research shows that the kind of treatment received by prostate cancer patients often depends on the type of specialist providing the patient’s care.

U.S. researchers evaluated data on more than 85,000 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and olde. All of them were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1994 and 2002. Of those patients, 50 percent were seen only by urologists, 44 percent by urologists and radiation oncologists, 3 percent by urologists and medical oncologists, and 3 percent by all three specialists.

The researchers found a strong association between the type of treatment and the type of specialist consulted, according to a news release from the journal’s publisher.

According to the report published in the March 8 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, within nine months after diagnosis, 21 percent of patients had surgery to remove the prostate and surrounding tissue (radical prostatectomy), 42 percent had received radiation therapy, 17 percent underwent a hormone therapy called primary androgen deprivation and 20 percent chose no treatment (”watchful waiting”).

Prostate cancer-specific survival 30 years after radical prostatectomy

A recent report at Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, WA, performed an evaluation on 30-year cancer control and survival outcomes after radical prostatectomy in a single center series of patients treated during a 43-year period.

The authors conclude that, in this series of radical prostatectomy patients, followed over a total period of 43 years, less than 10 percent of patients went on to have metastases and nearly 30 percent died of causes other than prostate cancer. They state in their conclusion that, it is important for patients with metastatic disease to be appropriately monitored by physicians whose primary interest is not in prostate cancer, since many such patients are going to be at significant risk for co-morbid conditions that may cause their death. However, local and distant control outcomes are excellent, and cancer specific mortality is minimal even 30 years after surgery.

Arc radiotherapy treatments: Breakthrough in image-guided targeting of prostate tumors

Researchers at Stanford University (California, USA) and Aarhus University Hospital (Aarhus, Denmark), partially supported by Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR), have made a breakthrough in image-guided targeting of prostate tumors during arc radiotherapy treatments. The research team has devised a method for ‘real-time’ tracking of the prostate motion that shows promise in paving the way for advanced clinical treatments. Researchers used a Varian’s On-Board Imager

Delivered in a continuous rotation of the treatment machine around the patient, arc therapy techniques such as Varian’s RapidArc technology are supposed to be fast and efficient radiotherapy treatments. For better tracking of tumor motion, its position must be updated in real-time in order to be reached by the dynamic multi-leaf collimator (DMLC). To achieve this target, a combination of MV portal images and kV orthogonal images have been tested by researchers. [ more about radiotherapy treatment ]

New prostate cancer guidelines can lead to unneeded treatments with unwanted side effects

The new American Cancer Society guidelines issued Wednesday on prostate cancer screening mean that many men will fight a cascade of decisions, with a growing responsibility for those decisions falling on their shoulders.

The new guidelines acknowledge the uncertainties surrounding PSA tests, which have been controversial for some time because assorted studies have produced conflicting results about the value of the screenings.

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests do detect cancers. But, because PSA test cannot make difference between slow and quick developing cancers, it can make the situation worse by revealing malignancies that wouldn’t cause a problem over a man’s lifetime. By consequence, the PSA screening will lead to unnecessary treatments and undesirable side effects, such as urinary incontinence and impotence. At the same time, it will re-emphasize the need for patient-doctor discussions on whether such tests are appropriate for individual patients.

Biochemical recurrence after prostatectomy and risk of mortality

A scientific report at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, has recently evaluated whether biochemical recurrence as a time-dependent covariate (t) after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer was associated with the risk of death and whether salvage therapy with radiotherapy and/or hormonal therapy can lessen this risk

The authors conclude that the occurrence of biochemical recurrence was found to increase the risk of death in men undergoing prostatectomy for prostate cancer, and this risk appeared to increase as the time to biochemical recurrence shortened. However, the addition of radiotherapy and/or hormonaltherapy in men with biochemical recurrence significantly lowered this risk.

Estrogen may kill prostate cancer

The usual way prostate cancer is treated is by withdrawing male hormone testosterone from the patient. The problem is while this kills most of the cells, the few that remain lead to recurrent, incurable disease.

Recently, researchers have suggested an unexpected way to treat this disease, by using estrogen, a hormone normally associated with women- a key breakthrough which they claim could pave the way for new treatments.

According to scientists, the research provides proof of the controversial concept that estrogens could be good for men and can be used therapeutically to treat prostate cancer.

New class of agents in the treatment of prostate cancer.

A scientific team proposes the potential of a whole new class of agents in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Researchers have reported data suggesting that some selective estrogen receptor-? (ER?) agonists may have efficacy in the treatment of prostate cancer - most specifically in patients who are refractory to standard forms of hormone therapy. Their study is based on the effects of the selective ER? agonist known as 8?-VE2 in mice, so it will be a while before we know whether this strategy actually works in man.

It may be possible to used ER? agonists and other forms of estrogen therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer and BPH, but there will be a lot of work to do before we can be certain.

In the same paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the authors also report data suggesting that ER? agonists might be useful in the management of benign prostatic hyperplasia or enlargement of the prostate.