Living with Prostate Cancer

The NCCN, or National Comprehensive Cancer Network (nccn.org,  *not* nccn.com) is a consortium of nearly 20 of the top cancer hospitals in the country.  Each year the NCCN issues “practice guidelines” for doctors relating to specific cancers, and these are taken very seriously by medical professionals and others.  (Note that doctors are not obligated to...

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[I am giving you a preview of a very important article by the New York Times chief science writer, Gina Kolata, which will appear in tomorrow's paper.  I hope this will add to my "street cred", as I've been saying these same things for years now (just search "robot" on this...

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caption id=”attachment_1938″ align=”alignleft” width=”600″ caption=”Upper West Side with Museum of Natural History (center)”][/caption] I’m almost afraid to post because I feel like a stranger to my own blog.  I haven’t written anything lately because so many bad things have happened to me, I feel like I’ve got an emotional concussion!  It’s hard to...

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Unfortunately, I can’t comment on this very important article at the moment. But I will say that prostate cancer patients in particular aresubjected to hype with regard to laparoscopic surgery, especially robotic.  Similarly, unfounded claims have been made about radiation, especially proton beam therapy and “cyberknife”. ———————————————————————————————————————————- Forty Years’ War: Cancer Center Ads Use...

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Provenge, a vaccine that has been shown to prolong life in men with advanced, castrate-resistant prostate cancer, may be approved for distribution by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  in a matter of months.  This is because the biotechnology company that has done the Phase III clinical trials,  Dendreon, submitted...

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[From physorg.com. All emphasis, e.g., boldface or italic typeface, is mine.] “Prostate Cancer Surgery Performed by Many Surgeons with Little Experience” November 19, 2009 (PhysOrg.com) — A new study from researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has found that the majority of surgeons treating prostate cancer in the United States have extremely...

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I am proud to announce that Malecare ( http://www.malecare.org ), the sponsor of this blog, has just rolled out a very useful and innovative service for prostate cancer patients.  You can now go to the website: prostatecanceradvice.org and ask questions of  very highly qualified doctors who specialize in different areas...

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The following excerpts are reposted from The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink (prostatecancerinfolink.net)  news blog, with permission of the author.   This piece is a bit dense, so if you want to know the gist of it, read the last two paragraphs. Just to clarify things, the authors of this study used two...

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From USnews.com today: “WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Nov. 10 (UPI) — U.S. researchers say they have been able to grow new penile tissue in labs and implant it into rabbits to restore their sexual function. “Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North...

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If you are newly diagnosed with a localized, low-grade prostate cancer (generally a Gleason score of less than 7, a PSA of 10 or less, stage T1c, etc.), I suggest you read this comprehensive slide presentation on “Active Surveillance” (previously called “watchful waiting”), by Dr. Peter Scardino, chief of Urology...

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