Archive for the 'Prostate Cancer' Category

Men who have too much calcium in their bloodstreams may have an increased risk of fatal prostate cancer, according to a new analysis from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin.

“We show that men in upper range of the normal distribution of serum calcium subsequently have an almost three-fold increased risk for fatal prostate cancer,” said Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., associate professor of cancer biology and of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest. Such excess calcium can be lowered, he said.

Co-author Halcyon G. Skinner of the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin stressed there is “little relationship between calcium in the diet and calcium in serum. So men needn’t be concerned about reducing their ordinary dietary intakes of calcium.”

Schwartz and Skinner analyzed the results of 2,814 men who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES-1). Measurement of the amount of calcium in the bloodstreams was determined an average of 9.9 years before prostate cancer was diagnosed.

The researchers focused on the 85 cases of prostate cancer and 25 prostate cancer deaths among the 2,814 men and divided the group into thirds, based on the serum calcium level.

Hormone therapy, the most common treatment for advanced prostate cancer, can boomerang to make the cancer more deadly, mouse studies suggest.

The finding “may revolutionize the way we combat prostate cancer,” suggest University of Rochester researchers Chawnshang Chang, PhD, Edward M. Messing, MD, and colleagues.

It’s well known that male sex hormones promote the growth of prostate cancer. That’s why doctors use hormone therapy — chemical or physical castration — to shut off these tumor-promoting androgens.

But Chang’s team finds that in different types of prostate cancer cells, androgens actually inhibit prostate cancer. When these tumor cells don’t get androgens, they become more aggressive and more invasive.

The lining of the prostate is made up of epithelial cells. The fibrous body of the prostate is made up of stromal cells.

On their surfaces, both cell types have triggers — androgen receptors — that fire when they encounter sex hormones. Triggering androgen receptors has different effects in each cell type.

Read more at WebMD

Prostate cancer is the leading malignancy in American men and causes more than 60,000 deaths annually.

Treatment of prostate cancer with either surgery, radiation therapy, cryotherapy or medical treatment is associated with significant life altering morbidity.

Both incontinence and erectile dysfunction (ED) are too often sequel of these treatment alternatives. ED can be a significant complication and can alter the life of both the prostate cancer patient and his partner.

Newer modifications of the radical prostatectomy with nerve sparing techniques are the cornerstone of erection preservation.

Time following radical prostatectomy has been shown to increase erectile function such that more patients have functional erections at 3 years than 1 year after surgery.

With the advent of PDE 5 inhibitors, many men can have improved functional erections and return to active coitus.

Prevention of ED is also an important management technique. Evidence is gathering that prophylaxis with regular vasoactive injection or daily PDE 5 agents may be an integral part of preservation of corpus cavernosum smooth muscle function.

Combination medical therapy and surgical penile prosthesis implantation are also options for patients failing oral PDE 5 inhibitors.

Screening for early signs of cancer may seem like a no-brainer. Screening can catch tumors at an early stage, but research also shows that screening doesn’t consistently extend life span, and it can lead to aggressive and unnecessary follow-up tests or treatments that can leave men incontinent and impotent.

Some doctors even believe that for certain men the test causes more harm than good. In fact, new guidelines released Monday by the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommend that men 75 or older skip the test if they have no reason to suspect they’re at high risk.

For men younger than 75, the task force concluded there isn’t enough good evidence to recommend either for or against screening.

Some medical groups, such as the American Cancer Society and the American Urological Association, encourage all healthy men to start PSA screening by age 50.

Others, such as the American Academy of Family Physicians, are more skeptical of the test and encourage men to get it only if they’ve fully considered the risks.

Scientists are claiming to have made a major breakthrough in the fight against prostate cancer with a new pill that shrinks tumors.

The new drug, abiraterone, could be used to treat up to 80 percent of patients with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, which almost always proves fatal.

The pill has been shown to minimize tumors and end the need for chemotherapy, which usually has unpleasant side effects and is not always effective.

Each year, 680,000 men worldwide are diagnosed with the disease and about 220,000 die from it.

In trials at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital in Britain, the majority of patients with previously untreatable and advanced cancer are said to have experienced “significant” regression of the disease.

Abiraterone is now being tested on 1,200 men worldwide.

“This agent clearly looks promising, but it is still at the early stages of clinical development,” said David Webb, professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Edinburgh.

Read more information at Fox News

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have shown an association between certain past diagnostic radiation procedures and an increased risk of young-onset prostate cancer - a rare form of prostate cancer which affects about 10 per cent of all men diagnosed with the disease.

The study, the first of its kind to report the relationship between low dose ionising radiation from diagnostic procedures and the risk of prostate cancer, was funded by the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) [Prostate cancer research] and is part of the UK Genetic Prostate Cancer Study (UKGPCS).

The study showed that men who had a hip or pelvic X-ray or barium enema 10 years previously were two and a half times more likely to develop prostate cancer than the general population. And the link appeared to be stronger in men who had a family history of the disease.

The research was led by Professor Kenneth Muir, from the Division of Epidemiology and Public Health at The University of Nottingham, in association with Dr Rosalind Eeles at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

A prostate cancer study that could change practice found that widely used hormone-blocking drugs did not improve survival chances for older men whose disease hadn’t spread.

In fact, men given the drugs alone were slightly more likely to die of prostate cancer during the next six years than men who’d gotten medical monitoring but no or delayed treatment, another common treatment approach.

The study involved nearly 20,000 Medicare patients with prostate cancer that hadn’t spread.

A surprising 41 percent got only drug treatment, in shots or implants, showing that the therapy has become a popular alternative to surgery and radiation[Radiation Therapy], the study authors said.

Other experts said the study gives doctors important information about how to treat older men with slow-growing disease that hasn’t spread beyond the prostate.

However, the study didn’t look at whether hormone-blocking drugs alone benefit younger men or compare that treatment with radiation or surgery.

Randomized studies have shown that the drugs can benefit men with more aggressive disease when used along with surgery or radiation.

But research is sparse on using hormone-blockers alone or in patients with localized cancer, like those in their study, the authors said.

If you are suffering with advanced prostate cancer, there are some drugs which can be used to cure this cancer.

You can also know some other types of prostate cancer here.

An uncontrolled growth of the cells in the prostate gland, which are the male sex glands, leads to the advanced prostate cancer.

The fluid is produced from the prostate gland, which is located at the bottom of the bladder from the serum that protects the sperms.

The prostate cancer is of three types. They are: Locally advanced cancer grows through the outer rim of prostate gland and tissues that are nearby. Recurrent prostate cancer is caused after the treatment. It can come near the prostate or at the back of prostate or the other parts of your body.

Metastatic prostate cancer can spread to the lymph nodes or metastasized or even spread to other parts of your body.

The advanced prostate cancer is slow growing, unlike other cancers. It can spread to other parts of your body including the bones.

Risk of getting prostate cancer is more in case of western countries. It includes 75% of the men of around 65 years old and 10% of them having family history. The environmental factors and diet are also linked with the prostate cancer.