Prostate Cancer

Terminal prostate cancer patients could get almost two more years of life with experimental immunotherapy drug, a study shows. Men who had exhausted all other treatment options for end-stage prostate cancer trialled pembrolizumab.  Researchers described 1.6 per cent of the men as 'super responders' because their disease disappeared on scans after taking the experimental therapy. They were surviving even after the clinical trial ended 22 months later, despite having a poor prognosis before treatment.  Overall, a quarter of participants showed evidence of the drug working, which could mean gaining extra time for those with little hope remaning.    Terminal prostate cancer patients could get almost two more years of life with experimental immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) According to the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the most dramatic responses were seen in patients whose tumours had mutations in genes involv...

“The U.S. spends more than other countries on health care and gets worse results.” You hear that argument a lot—especially from those pushing for Medicare for All or some other government-run health system. But is it true? Certainly Americans spend more on health than other nations. But the latest report on health care from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that, in many ways, we’re getting a pretty good return on that investment. In evaluating health systems, what matters most are the medical results they deliver. And the OECD report shows that, when it comes to the big-ticket items—combatting cancer, heart disease, and stroke—America is getting superior results. For example, 90 percent of American breast cancer patients lived at least five years after treatment, compared to a survival rate of only 85 percent in the rest of the OECD countries. Indeed, the report confirmed a “clear positive association” between per capita health spending and br...

Two new studies from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute demonstrated that omega-3 supplements will help reduce patients' risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure or death—but not increase their chances of developing prostate cancer. Their findings were 2019 presented on Nov. 17 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Approximately 1 in 9 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Association, with 60% of cases showing up in men who are 65 years old or older. A 2013 analysis published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggested that men with the highest levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids in their blood were at increased risk of prostate cancer. Viet T. Le, a researcher and physician assistant at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute, said researchers undertook this study in light of those findings. “If I’m recommending omega-3 for my patients to save their hearts, I ...

Prostate cancer incidence in older adolescent and young adult men has increased in most countries, but the cause for the rise is uncertain, according to a new study published online September 25 in the journal Cancer . "Men as young as 17 years are experiencing an increasing incidence of carcinoma of the prostate in much of the world," write an international team of authors, led by Archie Bleyer, MD, Oregon Health and Science University's Knight Cancer Institute in Portland. They report that the incidence of prostate cancer has increased in all groups between ages 15 and 40 years and increased globally at a steady rate averaging 2% per year since 1990 ( P < .01). However, prostate cancer is rare in young men, with incidence rates not rising above about 0.2 cases per 100,000 men until age 35 and being even lower at younger ages, per US data from the last two decades; notably, the rate spikes dramatically between ages 35 and 39, approaching 1.8 cases. However, at...

The Kings’ video room was eerily quiet one morning last November. A man stood at the front, a lump in his throat, his voice cracking. Dozens of eyes stared back at him, somber and soggy, tears welling in disbelief. In his 14 years as the Kings’ head athletic trainer, Chris Kingsley had learned to blend into the background. This sort of attention was the last thing he ever wanted. But, he couldn’t hide from it any longer. Kingsley had prostate cancer. And it was time his team finally found out. “It was sad,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “He was getting choked up. I don’t think any of us had ever seen him that way before. It was tough for him to tell us. But he was strong about it.” Advertisement It was the ultimate irony, a wicked twist of fate. The man long-tasked with safeguarding the Kings – who took injuries to players personally, and prided himself in returning them to health – had to suddenly put himself first. Kingsley caught it early, received a promising prognosis an...

medwireNews : Overall survival (OS) rates among men receiving cabazitaxel for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) are lower in everyday oncology practice than previously observed in clinical trials, French study data show. The difference seen was mainly “due to the presence of features of poor prognosis at baseline and use of cabazitaxel in 3rd line or beyond in 82% of patients,” write Nicholas Moore (University of Bordeaux) and co-authors in the British Journal of Cancer . Advertisement They add: “There were no unexpected safety issues, with severe neutropenia being the most important risk to consider when prescribing cabazitaxel.” Their multicenter postmarketing surveillance study included 401 French men (median age 70 years) with mCRPC who began treatment with cabazitaxel between 2013 and 2015. All of the men had previously received docetaxel, and 82% had also been treated with abiraterone, enzalutamide, or both. Moore and team report that cabazitax...

Sorry this isn’t your typical sports story with a line score, but now that I have your attention, I have some important information to share with you. It’s ‘Movember’, and besides shaggy facial hair, it brings awareness and support for testicular cancer, prostate cancer and suicide. So, if it’s Men’s Health Awareness, you may be asking yourself, why is a female writing this article? Well, women have been saving men for centuries now. As a physician, I can tell you if it wasn’t for wives and girlfriends, I wouldn’t have any male patients. I’m sure that a couple hundred years ago a pilgrim wife told her pilgrim husband, “Thou hast a most foul spot on thy back! Get thee to the physician!” In all seriousness though, men are 24 percent less likely to have seen a physician within the last year. The average life expectancy in the U.S. of men is 76.2 years, while for women it is 81 years. Approximately 12 percent of men over the age of 18 are in poor health. So, why is that? There are multip...

To examine the effect of permanent salvage brachytherapy in prostate cancer patients suffering recurrence after three-dimensional conformal external beam radiotherapy. The ultra-focal (target lesion alone), hemi-lobe (within a hemi-lobe) or focused whole-gland (focusing on the lesion, but extending into the whole gland) pattern was selected based on the Gleason score for the targeted biopsy, the numbers of positive cores in the targeted and systematic biopsies, and the locations of the positive cores. Novel dosimetry criteria derived from three-dimensional cancer mapping, which was based on targeted magnetic resonance imaging/transrectal ultrasound fusion biopsies, were used in these cases. Permanent salvage brachytherapy was carried out in 13 patients who suffered prostate-specific antigen failure (prostate-specific antigen 2.1-6.8 ng/mL; age range 57-75 years; Gleason score ≤7 [n = 10], Gleason score ≥8 [n = 2] and Gleason score not available [n =...

Male patients with advanced prostate cancer had a 97% response rate to relugolix (Relumina), a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor antagonist, in the phase III HERO study, meeting the primary end point of the study. The trial also met all 6 of its key secondary end points, according to a press release from Myovant Sciences.   The positive study results will be the foundation for a New Drug Application (NDA) submission to the FDA. Additionally, these results will support regulatory submissions in Europe and Japan, in the future. A response rate of 96.7% (95% CI, 94.9%-97.9%) was achieved in men treated with oral relugolix who had testosterone suppression down to castrate levels (≤50 ng/dL) that was sustained from week 5 through week 48. This was compared with the 88% suppression rate achieved by patients treated with leuprolide acetate (Lupron). The difference seen between the 2 groups was 7.9% (95% CI, 4.1%-11.8%). In addition, relugolix demonstrated superiority in 5 ...

Archie Bleyer Incidence of prostate cancer among adolescents and young adults has increased in the United States and many other countries during the past 3 decades, according to study results published in Cancer . Further, young men with prostate cancer appeared less adequately staged at diagnosis and at higher risk for metastatic disease and death compared with older-aged men. “Incidence of invasive cancer among [men aged 20 to 40 years] in the U.S. has been increasing in distinct contrast to older Americans, among whom incidence has been decreasing,” Archie Bleyer, MD, researcher in the department of radiation medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, told HemOnc Today . “Primary care providers should not exclude the possibility of prostate cancer in their male patients who are between [ages] 20 and 40 years, a potential diagnosis that would rarely have been considered previously. Oncologists, too, may want to include the possibility in their differential diagnosis...

Should you take omega-3 pills? Or try to have two to servings of omega-3 rich fish a week, as the American Heart Association recommends? It may seem a bit murky if you follow headlines about nutrition and health. That's why researchers at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute continue to research the potential benefits and risks of this popular supplement, especially when it comes to prostate cancer risk and heart health. The Intermountain research team presented two new studies about omega-3s at the 2019 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia on Nov. 17, 2019. In one study, the Intermountain research team identified 87 patients who were part of the Intermountain INSPIRE Registry and had developed prostate cancer. These patients were also tested for plasma levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which are two common omega-3 fatty acids. When compared to a matched control group of 149 men, the researchers found that h...

IMAGE:  Should you take omega-3 pills? Or try to have two to servings of omega-3 rich fish a week, as the American Heart Association recommends? It may seem a bit murky... view more  Credit: Intermountain Healthcare Should you take omega-3 pills? Or try to have two to servings of omega-3 rich fish a week, as the American Heart Association recommends? It may seem a bit murky if you follow headlines about nutrition and health. That's why researchers at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute continue to research the potential benefits and risks of this popular supplement, especially when it comes to prostate cancer risk and heart health. The Intermountain research team presented two new studies about omega-3s at the 2019 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia on Nov. 17, 2019. In one study, the Intermountain research team identified 87 patients who were part of the Intermountain INSPIRE Registry and had developed prostate cancer. These pa...

Jill Feldman doesn’t smoke, but she’s been vigilant about getting screened for lung cancer ever since the disease decimated her family. At 13, she lost two grandparents to it within weeks of each other. Just months later, her father was diagnosed, too, after complaining of a bad cough. He was only 41 when he died. When she was in her 20s, her mom also developed lung cancer and passed away, followed by a close aunt — five loved ones gone in just over a decade. Then at 39, Feldman got the news she was dreading. "Imagine how you would feel if you were diagnosed with the same disease that you literally watched kill both your mom and your dad,” she told TODAY. Every year, more men and women die from lung cancer than of colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. It's often detected late — when the cancer has already spread — and the five-year survival rate is just 19% percent. But thanks to two surgeries and targeted therapy for her specific kind of lung cancer, Feldman i...

To evaluate focal high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy in locally recurrent prostate cancer. Patients with biochemical relapse after non-surgical primary treatment for localised prostate cancer were selected after a negative screen for metastatic disease. Template mapping biopsies combined with multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging were used to identify the location of the tumour and the focal clinical target volume. The planning aim dose prescription was 19 Gy. Outcome measures were biochemical relapse-free survival and toxicity using International Prostate Symptom Score and Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 4.0) scores. Between March 2013 and December 2018, 50 patients underwent salvage HDR brachytherapy. The median follow-up was 21 months (range 1-53). Biochemical progression-free survival at 2 and 3 years was 63% and 46%, respectively. On multivariate analysis, only prostate-specific antigen nadir ≤0.5 ng/ml post-salvage (P = 0.03, hazard ratio 0...

SARASOTA, Fla. , Nov. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. John Sylvester , a radiation oncologist and prostate cancer researcher at 21 st Century Oncology, the largest integrated cancer care network in America, is the lead 21 st Century Oncology investigator of a groundbreaking new immunotherapy modulation study that could significantly improve health and quality of life for prostate cancer patients, eliminating surgery and other treatments that can cause incontinence, impotence and other serious side effects. Led by Johns Hopkins Institute, the ProstAtak® study is a nationwide trial including four investigators from 21 st Century Oncology. The double-blind study uses a modified cold virus that is injected into the prostate and inserts a herpes simplex gene into the cancer cells. The virus has been altered so as not to cause an infection. When the patient takes an anti-herpetic drug like valacyclovir, it kills the virus along with the cancer cells, and instructs the body's immune syst...