If treatment for prostate cancer is in your future, you might consider the following study results concerning radiation: IMRT (intensity-modulated radiation therapy) was superior to standard radiation when it came to disease control and the possibility of suffering with gastrointestinal problems and hip fractures. However, you are at greater risk of experiencing erectile dysfunction if…
Sexual performance, endurance, and libido are important to some degree for most guys, regardless of their age. So it’s natural for men to question their ability to recover sexual function after prostate cancer surgery (prostatectomy). After all, prostatectomy is a radical surgery that can have a major impact on a man’s sexual identity, physically and…
It seems like an unlikely fit: an oral antifungal may help with hormone resistant prostate cancer. Yet that is the finding from a small clinical study reported at the recent American Association for Cancer Research meeting. The antifungal drug is itraconazole, an oral medication used to treat fungal infections that originate in the lungs and…
Is prostate surgery better for low grade cancer than active surveillance? According to a recent study, men who undergo radical prostatectomy after being on active surveillance have outcomes that are similar to those of men with low-risk prostate cancer who forego active surveillance and choose radical prostatectomy. These findings were presented at the American Urological…
If you have advanced prostate cancer that has not responded to hormonal therapy (castration-resistant prostate cancer), you be wondering whether to try Provenge for your cancer. Provenge is a novel treatment for advanced prostate cancer that is made by Dendreon. Rather than a chemotherapy or hormone therapy, Provenge is an immunotherapy. This means that Provenge helps…
Did you ever hear the folktale about Chicken Little, who was hit on the head by a falling acorn? He wanted to warn the king – and everyone else – that “the sky is falling!” The story and its many age-old variants satirizes people who are unduly alarmed and spread exaggerated rumors. However, three recent…
Does active surveillance work? According to the results of a new study from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), active surveillance is an effective treatment choice for men who have low to intermediate risk prostate cancer. The study results were presented at the American Urological Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 20,…
Late stage prostate cancer has no cure, but with treatment you can manage the disease, control symptoms, and increase your life expectancy. Your treatment will depend on a number of different factors including specifics about your cancer, your current health, and your personal preferences related to potential treatments and side effects. What is late stage prostate…
It’s possible that Viagra (sildenafil), a drug used as an erectile dysfunction treatment, may also possess an ability to fight cancer. So far the anticancer potential of Viagra has been seen in mice only, and the only form of cancer used by the researchers was melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer. But the…
While androgen deprivation therapy is the mainstay of prostate cancer treatment today, targeted therapy offers additional treatment options when men develop castration resistant prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is considered a progressive disease with initial treatments targeting androgens, the predominate male hormones (such as testosterone) that allow prostate cancer to grow and spread. As a result,…
Pop quiz time: What substance is spicy and delicious, fights inflammation, and may stop prostate cancer in its tracks? Give up? It’s curcumin, the polyphenol found in the popular spice turmeric and the component that gives curry its kick. Many men are taking an interest in both turmeric and curcumin for prostate cancer and prostatitis….
Will I have erectile dysfunction after prostate cancer treatment? Are there factors that can help predict whether ED will be a problem for me? These are questions many men ask themselves and their doctors as they contemplate treatment for prostate cancer. And they are questions a new study, published in the Journal of the American…
The addition of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (Celebrex) to hormone therapy may cause regression of tumor growth in men with advanced prostate cancer. Scientists at the Vaccine Research Institute of San Diego used a mouse model of prostate cancer to evaluate the efficacy of this combination treatment approach. Hormone therapy (also known as androgen ablation…
New treatments for advanced prostate cancer provide more choices for prostate cancer patients than ever before. Advances in medical science are always leading to new treatments for advanced prostate cancer. This is important since, according to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and 1…
For some men, there is often the question of whether they should have radiation after prostatectomy for advanced prostate cancer. An evaluation of radiation therapy for men who had undergone prostatectomy for locally advanced prostate cancer showed that adjuvant radiotherapy was associated with better disease-specific survival than salvage radiation therapy. Adjuvant therapy is typically given…
Just as Ponce de Leon sought in vain for a fountain of youth, it appears that the search for a whole gland prostate treatment that will reliably preserve sexual function remains fruitless for the time being. At least, based on medium-term outcomes of whole gland HIFU announced by Dr. Mark Emberton’s team, it sure looks…
Treatments for castrate resistant prostate cancer have only been studied individually for the most part, but a case report published in the journal Urology begins to shed some light on whether combining Provenge with Xtandi might have benefit for some patients with castrate resistant prostate cancer . Nearly 1 in 3 men treated with local…
Xofigo compared to Zytiga means that men with prostate cancer have another treatment option to consider. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new medication, Xofigo (radium-223 dichloride), for late stage (metastatic) castration-resistant prostate cancer on May 15, 2013. With this new medication addition to the market, prostate cancer patients will want to ask…
The term “lumpectomy” is a type of surgery usually associated with breast cancer, but that could change. The authors of a study in The Lancet Oncology report that use of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can allow surgeons to perform prostate lumpectomy, in which they remove the tumor only rather than the entire prostate gland in men…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Provenge (sipuleucel-T) on April 29, 2010, for men who have advanced prostate cancer that has not responded to standard hormone therapy. Provenge is unique in that it is the first so-called vaccine for the treatment of prostate cancer. We say “so-called” because Provenge does not prevent prostate cancer,…
