Hundreds of men with prostate cancer may have gone through the trauma of unnecessary surgery – leaving them at risk of impotence, a study has suggested.
Scientists have found that many men with the disease who decide not to go for surgery or other invasive therapies such as radiotherapy fare just as well as those who do choose the treatment.
The mistakes happen because the standard PSA test used to detect prostate cancer is so unreliable that it cannot distinguish between aggressive and mild forms of the disease.
While people with the aggressive or ‘tiger’ form may require surgery or radiotherapy to save their lives, those with mild or ‘pussycat’ cancer can live for years without treatment.
Prostate cancer
It is hard for doctors to know which is which.
But going for surgery and radiotherapy – as hundreds in Britain do every year – is a risk because they can both leave men impotent and sometimes incontinent.
Prostate is Britain’s most common cancer among men and the second highest killer, after lung cancer. Some 35,000 people a year are diagnosed with it – and 12,000 die.
Study leader Dr Martin Sanda, associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, said: ‘With the advent of PSA screening nearly 20 years ago, we started to detect prostate cancers at much earlier stages.
‘Consequently, while PSA testing has enabled us to successfully begin aggressive treatment of high-risk cancers at an earlier stage, it has also result in the diagnosis of cancers that are small they pose no near-term danger and possibly no long-term danger.’
His team studied the health of 51,529 men who they have been following since 1986.
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March 9th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
A “tame” virus could prove to be a future weapon against prostate cancer, early research suggests.
Scientists who administered the virus to six volunteer patients found it killed off cancer cells while sparing normal tissue.
The respiratory, enteric, orphan virus, or “reovirus” is widespread but causes no significant illness in humans.
People exposed to it suffer, at most, mild flu-like respiratory symptoms or diarrhoea.
Previous research has shown that reovirus has “oncolytic” potential, meaning it preferentially targets cancer cells.
There is already some evidence of its effect against lymphoid, ovarian, breast, pancreatic and high grade glioma brain cancers.
The new Canadian study is the first to test the virus on prostate cancer.
Study leader Dr Don Morris, from the Tom Baker Cancer Center in Alberta, said: “Our results are a stepping stone into future prostate cancer clinical trials with another category of cancer therapeutics.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/tame-virus-primed-for-role-as-cancer-killer-1918696.html
March 16th, 2010 at 8:44 am
A receding hairline can be a good thing, according to US scientists, who say men who go bald by 30 appear to be less likely to develop prostate cancer.
Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine studied 2,000 men aged between 40 and 47.
They were able to link high levels of the male hormone testosterone in those who lose their hair earlier with a lower risk of tumours.
The findings are published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology.
Half of the men in this study had suffered prostate cancer.
Researchers compared the rate of tumours in those who said their hair had thinned by the age of 30 with those who did not suffer hair loss.
Men who had started to develop bald spots on the top of their heads as well as receding hairlines had a 29% to 45% reduction in the risk of prostate cancer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8569826.stm
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Men living in deprived areas are less likely to receive radiotherapy or surgery for prostate cancer than their richer counterparts, a study suggests.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, researchers who studied 35,000 men described “substantial” differences between what rich and poor received.
They said it was unclear what impact this could have on survival.
But previous studies have suggested a gap as high as 7% in survival rates between the least and most deprived.
If the cancer is localised and deemed low risk, most men are regularly monitored, but if it has started to develop doctors offer surgery or radiotherapy.
The Cambridge University team noted that the use of surgery more than doubled between 1995 and 2006. But their study showed it was more likely to be taken up by the most affluent – with 8.4% of this group receiving treatment to remove the prostate gland compared with 4% of the worst-off patients.
With radiotherapy, nearly 29% of the wealthiest received this form of treatment, compared with 21% of the poorest.
The pattern of discrepancies continued even when age, stage of the disease and hospital were taken into account.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8637584.stm
April 30th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
A “vaccine” which harnesses the body’s own immune system to fight prostate cancer has been approved for use by US drug regulators.
Provenge – which is designed to be used in men with advanced disease – is the first of its kind to be accepted by the Food and Drug Administration.
Each dose has to be individually tailored and it is an expensive treatment at $93,000 per patient.
It will add to, rather than replace, existing treatments, said experts.
Doctors have been working on therapies that prompt the immune system to fight tumours for decades.
Potential success stories include an experimental vaccine for melanoma which is in the late stages of development.
This latest therapy is made by collecting special blood cells from each patient that help the immune system recognise cancer as a threat.
These are then mixed with a protein found on most prostate cancer cells and a substance which kick-starts the immune response.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8654039.stm
July 20th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Men with a long ring finger could be three times more likely to develop prostate cancer, research shows.
Doctors found that the risk increases if the ring finger on the right hand is significantly longer than the index finger next to the thumb.
But men whose ring fingers are only slightly longer, or are about the same length, are much less likely to get the disease.
The findings open up the possibility of screening men with longer fingers at an early age for signs of cancer.
In the study, blood tests showed that men with longer ring fingers on their right hand had higher levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA).
This chemical is sometimes found in high levels in blood when cancer is present. The right hand was studied because the difference between the length of its ring finger and index finger is often greater than on the left, as it is more sensitive to hormonal changes in the womb.
The results are the latest in a long line of studies linking finger length to men’s health, most of which highlight the benefits of a long ring finger.
These include reduced risk of heart disease, a better chance of exam success and increased fertility.
Last year a team of experts from the Medical Research Council’s Epidemiology Resource Unit at Southampton University even found that young men with longer ring fingers made better sprinters.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1296364/A-long-ring-finger-mean-youre-prostate-cancer-risk.html