http://medicineworld.org/cancer/prostate/prostate-cancer-blog.html Prostate cancer blog from medicineworld.org adds a personal touch to the stories related to prostate cancer. This prostate cancer blog brings you stories of hope, stories of survivors and latest news and research related to prostate cancer. Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT en-us http://medicineworld.org/images/blogs/prostate.jpg http://medicineworld.org/cancer/blog/permalinks/Dec-2005/cure-cancer-with-your-personal-computer.html 107 99 http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/2-2010/lower-detection-of-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/2-2010/lower-detection-of-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Fewer prostate cancers were detected by prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in the U.S. than in a European randomized trial because of lower screening sensitivity, as per a new brief communication published online February 8 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute To compare the PSA screening performance in a clinical trial with that in a population setting, Elisabeth M. Wever, MSc, Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Center, the Netherlands, and his colleagues applied a microsimulation model developed for prostate cancer and screening to the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC)Rotterdam. The model was adapted by replacing the trial's demography parameters with U.S.-specific ones and the screening protocol with the frequency of PSA tests in the population. The natural progression of prostate cancer and the sensitivity (percentage of men correctly identified as having prostate cancer of those who have preclinical prostate cancer) of a PSA test followed by a biopsy were assumed to be the same in the US as in the trial........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/2-2010/how-some-prostate-cancer-cells-aggressive.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/2-2010/how-some-prostate-cancer-cells-aggressive.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Prostate cancer cells are more likely to spread to other parts of the body if a specific gene quits functioning normally, as per new data from scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Certain prostate cancer cells can be held in check by the DAB2IP gene. The gene's product, the DABIP protein, acts as scaffolding that prevents a number of other proteins involved in the progression of prostate cancer cells from over-activation. When those cells lose the DAB2IP protein, however, they break free and are able to metastasize, or spread, drastically increasing the risk of cancer progression in other organs as the cells travel through the bloodstream or lymph system........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/1-2010/prostate-cancer-is-treated-differently.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/1-2010/prostate-cancer-is-treated-differently.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Scientists at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego and his colleagues have observed that prostate cancer therapys varied significantly between county hospitals and private providers. Patients treated in county hospitals are more likely to undergo surgery while patients treated in private facilities tend to receive radiation or hormone treatment. These findings were published online by the journal Cancer on January 25........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/prostate-biopsy-is-not-always-necessary.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/prostate-biopsy-is-not-always-necessary.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that some elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in men appears to be caused by a hormone normally occurring in the body, and are not necessarily a predictor of the need for a prostate biopsy........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/size-and-shape-of-the-blood-vessels.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/size-and-shape-of-the-blood-vessels.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT A diagnosis of prostate cancer raises the question for patients and their physicians as to how the tumor will behave. Will it grow quickly and aggressively and require continuous therapy, or slowly, allowing treatment and its risks to be safely delayed? The answer may lie in the size and shape of the blood vessels that are visible within the cancer, as per research led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute in collaboration with the Harvard School of Public Health........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/screening-for-breast-cancer-and-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/screening-for-breast-cancer-and-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Twenty years of screening for breast and prostate cancer - the most diagnosed cancer for women and men - have not brought the anticipated decline in deaths from these diseases, argue experts from the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in an opinion piece reported in the "Journal of the American Medical Association"........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/9-2009/tools-for-prostate-cancer-screening.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/9-2009/tools-for-prostate-cancer-screening.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Eventhough screening for prostate cancer with the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test in men ages 50-70 can detect the cancer before it becomes symptomatic, knowing whether screening is beneficial for these men is uncertain. Recent trials have shown small or no reductions in prostate cancer mortality among those screened. The small potential for benefit must be balanced against the more common and immediate downsides of increasing the chance of prostate cancer diagnosis and therapy-related complications........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/7-2009/heavy-alcohol-consumption-and-risk.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/7-2009/heavy-alcohol-consumption-and-risk.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Consumption of 50 g or more of alcohol per day or four or more drinks per day for at least five days per week was linked to an elevated risk for prostate cancer. Furthermore, drinking 50 g or more of alcohol per day rendered therapy with finasteride ineffective. Scientists analyzed data from 2,129 participants with cancer and 8,791 participants without disease from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial. They examined the relationships between risk for low- and high-grade prostate cancer and total alcohol consumption, types of alcoholic beverages and consumption pattern. Scientists also analyzed the effect of alcohol consumption on the effectiveness of finasteride based on the arms that patients were randomly assigned to in the original trial........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/7-2009/prostate-cancer-patients.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/7-2009/prostate-cancer-patients.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Patients with prostate cancer who receive brachytherapy and remain free of disease for five years or greater are unlikely to have a recurrence at 10 years, as per a research studyin the July 1 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/6-2009/selenium-intake-may-worsen-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/6-2009/selenium-intake-may-worsen-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Higher selenium levels in the blood may worsen prostate cancer in some men who already have the disease, as per a research studyby scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute the University of California, San Francisco. A higher risk of more-aggressive prostate cancer was seen in men with a certain genetic variant found in about 75 percent of the patients with prostate cancer in the study. In those subjects, having a high level of selenium in the blood was linked to a two hundred percent greater risk of poorer outcomes than men with the lowest amounts of selenium. By contrast, the 25 percent of men with a different variant of the same gene and who had high selenium levels were at 40 percent lower risk of aggressive disease. The variants are slightly different forms of a gene that instructs cells to make manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2), an enzyme that protects the body against harmful oxygen compounds........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/6-2009/now-you-can-buy-a-kit-to-test-for-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/6-2009/now-you-can-buy-a-kit-to-test-for-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT An over-the-counter prostate cancer test kit could be coming to a pharmacy near you, thanks to the collaborative work of a University of Central Florida chemist and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando researchers. UCF's Qun "Treen" Huo and M.D. Anderson-Orlando's Dr. Cheryl Baker and Jimmie Colon teamed up about 18 months ago with a very ambitious plan. Huo wanted to develop an effective, inexpensive test to screen for prostate cancer that would be easy enough to use at home or a local pharmacy........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/5-2009/advanced-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/5-2009/advanced-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT While young men with prostate cancer have a low risk of dying early, those with advanced forms of cancer do not live as long as older men with similar forms of the disease. That is the conclusion of a newly released study reported in the July 1, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society. The paradoxical findings indicate that there appears to be biological differences between prostate cancers that develop in younger men and those that develop in older men, and that uncovering these differences may help tailor screening and therapy strategies for patients based on age........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/4-2009/diet-soda-may-reduce-kidney-stones.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/4-2009/diet-soda-may-reduce-kidney-stones.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Patients with stone disease could benefit from drinking diet soda. New research from the University of California, San Francisco suggests that the citrate and malate content in usually consumed sodas appears to be sufficient to inhibit the development of calcium stones. The study was presented at the 104th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA)........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/4-2009/statins-may-reduce-the-risk-of-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/4-2009/statins-may-reduce-the-risk-of-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may reduce inflammation in prostate tumors, possibly hindering cancer growth, as per a research studyled by researchers in the Duke Prostate Center. "Prior studies have shown that men taking statins seem to have a lower occurence rate of advanced prostate cancer, but the mechanisms by which statins might be affecting the prostate remained largely unknown," said Lionel Baez, M.D., a researcher in the Duke Prostate Center and lead investigator on this study. "We looked at tumor samples and observed that men who were on statins had a 72 percent reduction in risk for tumor inflammation, and we believe this might play a role in the correlation between prostate cancer and statin use"........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/4-2009/who-should-get-psa-testing.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/4-2009/who-should-get-psa-testing.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT LINTHICUM, MD, April 27, 2009The American Urological Association (AUA) today issued new clinical guidance which directly contrasts recent recommendations issued by other major groups about prostate cancer screening, asserting that the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test should be offered to well-informed, men aged 40 years or older who have a life expectancy of at least 10 years. The PSA test, as well as how it is used to guide patient care (e.g., at what age men should begin regular testing, intervals at which the test should be repeated, at what point a biopsy is necessary) is highly controversial; however, the AUA believes that, when offered and interpreted appropriately the PSA test may provide essential information for the diagnosis, pre-treatment staging or risk evaluation and post-treatment monitoring of prostate cancer........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/3-2009/some-men-with-prostate-cancer.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/3-2009/some-men-with-prostate-cancer.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:05:41 GMT A multi-center study of patients with prostate cancer appearing in today's Journal of Urology recommends that for some men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer, opting not to initially receive therapy can be safe if they are closely monitored. The study addresses an important question for men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer and at minimal risk of cancer progression or metastases: when to actively treat versus when to observe and closely monitor. Radiation treatment and surgery are effective therapys but can be linked to serious long-term side effects such as incontinence and erectile dysfunction. Investigators in the study show that two separate biopsies are needed to determine optimal selection of patients for active surveillance, also known as "watchful waiting" when patients decide not to undergo immediate therapy........ ]]>