Prostate Cancer

Image copyright Getty Images A major trial of an immunotherapy drug has shown it can be effective in some men with advanced prostate cancer. The men had stopped responding to the main treatment options. Researchers found that a small proportion of men, described as "super responders", remained well even after the trial ended, despite a very poor prognosis before treatment. Last week it was reported the same drug had proved effective in treating advanced head and neck cancers . What is immunotherapy? Immunotherapy uses our own immune systems to recognise and attack cancer cells. It's already being used as a standard treatment for some cancers such as melanomas - and being tested on many others too. What did the study find? It found that one in 20 men with advanced prostate cancer responded to the drug pembrolizumab - and saw their tumours actually shrink or disappear altogether. Although a relatively small number, some of them gained years of extra life, the stu...

Although one in nine men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis in his lifetime, cutting-edge research has allowed more men to live longer or even be cured. Statistics show that one in nine men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis during his lifetime, making it the most common cancer among men after skin cancer. But thanks to the work being done at institutions like City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in California, more men are being cured each year, and those who aren’t cured are living longer. One such program that sheds light on this cause is City of Hope’s NoShaver November. The month-long fundraising and awareness campaign urges participants to forego shaving to start a conversation, encourage testing and raise critical funds to continue leading-edge prostate cancer research and promising new therapies conducted at City of Hope.  CURE ® recently spoke with Dr.  Tanya Dorff , a medical oncologist at City of Hope who specializes in prostate cancer, about the...

A new study led by Fred Hutch researchers has found that black men with low-risk prostate cancer can practice active surveillance just like their white counterparts. Stock photo by Getty Images Black men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer can practice active surveillance just like their white counterparts instead of heading straight into surgery or radiation, a new study has determined. The finding, recently published in the Journal of Urology , comes from a large research collaboration known as the Canary Prostate Active Surveillance Study, or Canary PASS , led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “I think this is good news for African American men,” said Dr. Daniel Lin , principal investigator of the Canary PASS cohort, the large patient registry that has fueled the decade-long prostate cancer initiative. Canary PASS funding was just extended for another five years. Read more here . “There have been some conflicting reports as to whether it’s safe to use a...

IMAGE:  Images were acquired 6 days after injection and are displayed at same gray scale with SUVmax of 10. Patients in upper panel (particularly patients 3 and 9) have extensive metastatic... view more  Credit: Jorge A. Carrasquillo, Bernard M. Fine, Neeta Pandit-Taskar, Steven M. Larson et al. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Genentech Inc. A recently discovered prostate cancer-selective antigen has been identified as a useful molecular imaging target for the detection and targeting of metastatic prostate cancer lesions, as reported in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine . Using a novel radiotracer, researchers were able to effectively image STEAP1 (six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of prostate-1) in tumors and localize a large number of lesions. Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) is a significant health care problem, with more than 42,000 cases projected in 2020. "While significant strides have been made in detec...

Micrograph showing prostatic acinar adenocarcinoma (the most common form of prostate cancer) Credit: Wikipedia Some men with advanced prostate cancer who have exhausted all other treatment options could live for two years or more on immunotherapy, a major clinical trial has shown. Researchers found that a small proportion of men were 'super responders' and were alive and well even after the trial had ended despite having had a very poor prognosis before treatment. The study found that one in 20 men with end-stage prostate cancer responded to the immunotherapy pembrolizumab—but although the number who benefited was small, these patients sometimes gained years of extra life. The most dramatic responses came in patients whose tumours had mutations in genes involved in repairing DNA, and the researchers are investigating whether this group might especially benefit from immunotherapy. The phase II clinical trial was led globally by a team at The Institute of Cancer Resear...

Some men with advanced prostate cancer who have exhausted all other treatment options could live for two years or more on immunotherapy, a major clinical trial has shown. Researchers found that a small proportion of men were ‘super responders’ and were alive and well even after the trial had ended despite having had a very poor prognosis before treatment. The study found that one in 20 men with end-stage prostate cancer responded to the immunotherapy pembrolizumab – but although the number who benefited was small, these patients sometimes gained years of extra life. The most dramatic responses came in patients whose tumours had mutations in genes involved in repairing DNA, and the researchers are investigating whether this group might especially benefit from immunotherapy. The phase II clinical trial was led globally by a team at The Institute of Cancer Research , London, and The Royal Marsden Foundation Trust, and involved 258 men with advanced prostate cancer who had previously b...

EAU 2019: The Urologist’s Perspective on Active Surveillance Presented by Roderick van den Bergh, MD Barcelona, Spain (UroToday.com) Dr. van den Bergh presented on the current and future role of active surveillance in prostate cancer. Approximately 350 studies on active surveillance have been published per year in the last 5 years. This therapeutic strategy has been incorporated into all major urological guidelines Read More ESOU 2019: Risk Stratification for Active Surveillance Presented by Nicolas Mottet, MD, Ph.D Prague, Czech Republic (UroToday.com) It is good news for both patients and physicians that there has been wider adoption of appropriate utilization of active surveillance (AS) among patients with prostate cancer. Dr. Nicolas Mottet presented risk stratification for active surveillance. Read More CUOS 2019: Active Surveillance: Long-Term Data - We Continue to Learn Presented by Laurence Klotz, MD, FRCSC Toronto, Ontario (UroToday.com) Dr. Laure...

Psychosocial problems that adversely affect quality of life are common among men after receiving treatment for prostate cancer (PCa), and they need help managing depression, coping with fear of cancer recurrence, and dealing with other issues, according to investigators. Using data from a web-based support system that was part of a National Cancer Institute-funded 5-year study of 431 men with PCa, Erin K. Tagai, PhD, MPH, a postdoctoral fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center/Temple University Health System in Philadelphia, and colleagues examined psychosocial concerns of men within 1 year of PCa treatment. They examined how confident men felt about maintaining their health and relationships with others and their satisfaction with how they communicate with their physicians. They also investigated practical concerns related to managing family, job, and financial responsibilities. Re-entry phase Dr Tagai’s team labeled the first year post-treatment as the re-entry phase because patients a...

Western Oncology professor Glenn Bauman leads a multi-centre trial registry testing the use of a new imaging tracer for more precise detection and treatment of recurrent prostate cancer. Credit: Western News A new study looks to move doctors and patients closer to earlier and more precise detection of recurrent prostate cancer that would clarify treatment decisions and lead to more confident courses of action and better health outcomes. A multi-center trial registry testing the use of a new imaging tracer—prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) – is targeting men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer , have had treatment, and are now concerned the cancer may have returned. "PSA (prostate specific antigen) is highly sensitive test at telling us if the cancer might be returning. But the challenge has been that the cancer is usually most treatable when levels are still quite low," explained Western Oncology professor Glenn Bauman. Standard PSA blood tests ofte...

The aim of this study was to describe age- related prostate cancer (PCa) characteristics in men after radical prostatectomy (RP). There were 2,373 men who underwent RP for clinically localized PCa between 2002 and 2017 and had complete data that were included into the study. Among them, 315 (13.3%) men aged ≤55 years (GR-1), 1,098 (46.3%) men aged between 56 to 65 years (GR-2) and 960 (40.4%) men aged older than 65 years (GR-3) were identified. All preoperative and pathological parameters were compared between all three groups and between each group separately. High-risk prostate cancer (HRPCa) cases were analyzed separately. Regression analysis was used to evaluate the impact of age on cancer aggressiveness. Clinical stage (cT), biopsy Gleason score and D'Amico risk groups were different comparing age-related study groups (all p <0.01), respectively. Preoperatively cT1 and Gleason 6 were in the highest rate for GR-1 in comparison with GR-3: 35.9 vs. 27.1%, p = 0.003 and 65.1%...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] 'Luckiest man on the planet,' Steve Pool shares prostate cancer journey    KOMO News https://ift.tt/2XLjvzK

Surgical castration for metastatic prostate cancer is used less frequently than medical castration, yet costs less, requires less follow-up, and may be associated with fewer adverse effects. We sought to evaluate temporal trends and factors associated with the use of surgical castration. This retrospective cohort study sampled 24,805 men with newly diagnosed (de novo) metastatic prostate cancer from a national cancer registry in the United States (2004-2016). Multivariable logistic regression assessed the association between sociodemographics and surgery. Multivariable Cox regression evaluated the association between castration type and overall survival. Overall, 5.4% of men received surgical castration. This decreased from 8.5% in 2004 to 3.5% in 2016 (Per year later: OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.87-0.91,p<0.001). Compared to Medicare, private insurance was associated with less surgery (OR 0.73, 95% CI 0.61-0.87, p<0.001) while Medicaid or no insurance was associated with more surgery (O...

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...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] MRSI Parameters Can Predict Early Recurrence Postsurgery in Prostate Cancer | Oncology Newswatch    Oncology Learning Network https://ift.tt/2KScgkw

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Stratify Genomics Taps PWNHealth to Offer Prostate Cancer Risk Test Online    360Dx https://ift.tt/2DgU53D

Professor Samer Ezziddin. Credit: Thorsten Mohr Prostate cancer accounts for 26 percent of male cancer cases diagnosed in Germany, making it the most common form of malignant tumor in men. If the cancer becomes metastatic, it is not unlikely that it will prove fatal in the generally elderly patients. Scientists and doctors at Saarland University Hospital recently conducted a clinical trial in which they established the effectiveness of a therapeutic method that is successful in controlling late-stage prostate tumors and their metastases without causing serious side effects. The novel element in their approach involves combining two radioactive substances that are able to destroy the tumor cells by very precisely irradiating them at very short (millimeter or micrometer) range. As a result, a patient's life expectancy can be extended without any substantial impairment in quality of life. The pilot study, which was led by nuclear radiologist Professor Samer Ezziddin, has been p...

NEW YORK – A new study this week has added valuable cross-signature and cross-population data on how currently used gene expression tests for prostate cancer recurrence risk perform and compare in African American versus caucasian men. Get the full story with 360Dx Premium Only $95 for the first 90 days* 360Dx Premium gives you: ✔ Full site access ✔ Interest-based email alerts ✔ Access to archives Never miss another important industry story. Try 360Dx Premium now. You may already have institutional access! Check if I qualify. Already a 360Dx or GenomeWeb Premium member? Login Now . * Before your trial expires, we’ll put together a custom quote with your long-term premium options. https://ift.tt/2rnycNh

publication date: Nov. 22, 2019 Clinical Roundup Men who seek treatment at a multidisciplinary prostate cancer clinic are more likely to be advised about treatment choices and to receive care that complies with evidence-based treatment guidelines, an MD Anderson Cancer Center study found. African American men who visited the MultiD clinic also were more likely to receive definitive, or curative, therapy, compared with national trends. The findings, published in Cancer , are based on the largest and longest analysis of a MultiD clinic database. The study evaluated treatment choice at MD Anderson’s Multidisciplinary Prostate Cancer Clinic in comparison to U.S. national trends assessed by reviewing the SEER database. “Men who visit a MultiD prostate clinic have the opportunity to see a radiation oncologist and a urologist in the same visit, giving them the chance to discuss treatments options and potential side effects in order to make an informed treatment decision,” Chad Tang, assi...

Sometimes after finishing prostate cancer treatment, men get an unwelcome surprise: their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels creep higher, suggesting tumors too small to be seen lurk somewhere in the body. This leads to several options. Doctors can continue to monitor a man’s condition with imaging scans. Or, given the anxiety associated with rising PSA, they might try to lower the levels with chemically “castrating” drugs that inhibit testosterone, a hormone that makes prostate tumors grow faster. Following that treatment, called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), PSA generally declines and may become undetectable. But what if PSA climbs further despite ADT’s inhibiting effects on testosterone? This condition is called nonmetastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC). It’s called “nonmetastatic” because cancer hasn’t spread in a way that’s detectable with imaging technology. And it’s called “castration-resistant” because PSA isn’t responding to the chemically castrat...

[embedded content] David F. Penson, MD, MPH, MMHC, chair, Department of Urology, and Paul V. Hamilton, MD and Virginia E. Howd Chair, Urologic Oncology, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses treatment selection in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Several FDA-approved agents are indicated for patients with mHSPC, including apalutamide (Erleada), abiraterone acetate (Zytiga), and docetaxel. Notably, the FDA granted a priority review designation to a supplemental new drug application for enzalutamide (Xtandi) for the treatment of patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive disease, based on data from the phase III ARCHES and ENZAMET trials. Given the number of agents that are available in this setting, treatment can be individualized to each patient. For example, patients who have epilepsy would not do well on enzalutamide, says Penson. If the patient is a frail diabetic, they may not do well on abiraterone or docetaxel. If a patient has a hi...