The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it will fast-track the new prostate cancer drug Alpharadin. Fast-tracking a drug speeds up its approval process by around six months. Alpharadin got the green light because recent clinical trial results showed the drug improved overall survival in men with hormone therapy resistant prostate cancer and symptoms…
A recent study was undertaken to determine whether selenium has the ability to prevent prostate cancer in men who have high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, or HG-PIN, a specific risk factor for prostate cancer. Results of the earlier SELECT study found that selenium therapy does not prevent prostate cancer in men in general, but it was…
Knowing your risk for disease can help you take steps to lower your chance of getting ill. With men, they often avoid worrying about their health until they are diagnosed with a problem. Women are better at prevention, which is why it is important to know if your husband is at risk for prostate cancer…
Estrogen for prostate cancer treatment is not a new therapy, but researchers have suggested a different way to give the treatment: patches. Use of estrogen patches may prove to be a safer and more cost-effective way to administer hormone therapy for prostate cancer. How estrogen for prostate cancer treatment works Estrogen is one form of…
Men who elect to undergo robotic prostatectomy rather than the standard open prostatectomy or laparoscopic prostatectomy can expect the procedure to be significantly more costly but also safer. A study in the Journal of Urology notes that men who had robotic prostatectomy had a lower risk of needing a blood transfusion or dying, and enjoyed…
Cryosurgery (also known as cryoablation and cryotherapy) for prostate cancer, a procedure that delivers a gas to the tumor and freezes the cancer cells while limiting the damage to healthy tissue, is an effective treatment for men who have localized prostate cancer. That’s the conclusion of researchers at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk. The…
Did you ever make a pinhole camera when you were young? Pinhole cameras are the most basic type of camera. All you need is a closed box with a black interior, a pinhole in one side, and some type of film opposite the side with the pinhole. They capture pretty good pictures, depending on the…
“In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife.” Julia Child, whose how-to cooking show brought French cooking into American kitchens, made that observation about a…
You might assume that, upon diagnosis of a malignant tumor, your immediate reaction would be to run screaming to the nearest clinic, demanding its immediate removal at any cost – and while historically, this reaction would be typical, this attitude is fast changing. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, up to 50% of men diagnosed…
A large, retrospective population study suggests that prostate cancer treatments that lower male sex hormones may increase the risk of colorectal cancer. Men treated with gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists or surgical removal of their testicles (orchiectomy) to lower their testosterone and PSA levels experienced an increased risk of colorectal cancer of about 20 to 40…
At first, the United States government said there was no connection between the Agent Orange sprayed during the Vietnam War and the increased appearance of prostate cancer among veterans. Then, in 1996, the Institute of Medicine concluded its report, “Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 1996,” and admitted there was credible evidence of a positive association…
You may be familiar with finasteride (Proscar) and dutasteride (Avodart) as drugs used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), but studies have also looked at whether these two 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors could help prevent prostate cancer. Experts from the Food and Drug Administration’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee evaluated this idea recently, and their conclusions appear in…
First, the good news: the number of cases of prostate cancer overall does not appear to be increasing. However, new research from Northwestern University indicates that new cases of metastatic prostate cancer (the type that has spread beyond the prostate) has risen 72 percent between 2004 and 2013. Men between the ages of 55 and…
I have previously written several blogs about the correlation between lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, supplements, etc.) and the risk of prostate cancer (PCa). There is ample evidence that healthy choices can reduce risk by helping the genes that discourage tumor growth. On the other side, there are also plenty of studies that show a connection…
Researchers have uncovered evidence that suggests using neem for prostate cancer treatment may be helpful. Specifically, neem (Azadirachta indica), which has a long history of use in Ayurvedic medicine, contains a compound called nimbolide, found in its leaves, seeds, roots, bark, and fruits. Nimbolide is a terpenoid lactone that has been credited with various attributes,…
Experts report a significant decline in prostate cancer incidence and deaths, according to study results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting held in Atlanta March 29 to April 3, 2019. Of the 44 countries evaluated for incidence data, the United States showed the largest decline in cancer rates among the seven…
In the urologic world, there is a longstanding bias that surgical removal of the prostate gland, or radical prostatectomy (RP), is the preferred treatment for prostate cancer (PCa). It is based in the outdated belief that all PCa is a) multifocal, and b) likely to spread beyond the gland if untreated. Thus, it seemed logical…
One of the common ways to treat advanced prostate cancer is by significantly reducing the levels of sex hormones, especially testosterone, using hormone therapy. However, this approach is associated with some troubling adverse effects, which may be successfully addressed if men choose some natural ways to reduce hormone therapy side effects. What are the side…
Chemotherapy refers to the use of anti-cancer drugs to treat cancer. These drugs may be administered intravenously or orally. Chemotherapy works by causing the death of rapidly dividing cells. Since cancer cells tend to divide more quickly than normal cells, this means that the drugs target the cancer. However, these drugs can also kill normal…
Taking Xofigo after Provenge could potentially be a treatment sequence for metastatic prostate cancer, after more research has been done. With all of the different clinical trials in castration resistant prostate cancer and the approval of multiple different different drugs, some patients might wonder if they can take Xofigo after Provenge. Unfortunately, there is not…
