Month: November 2021
Can PET/MRI for Breast Cancer Show the Way to Eliminate Prostate Biopsies?
Advances in medicine sometimes involve hybrid technologies, often with stunning results. Just as hybrid cars produce vehicles that offer the best of two worlds in one, integrating two different medical imaging technologies can accomplish the same goal. PET and MRI scans Combining Positron Emitting Tomography (PET) scanning with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) boosts the accuracy keep reading
A Better PSA Calculation
Getting an annual PSA blood test to screen for prostate cancer (PCa) has been likened to playing Russian roulette. You hope to dodge the you’ve-got-prostate-cancer bullet. So far, the search for a 100% accurate liquid biopsy via blood draw or urine test has been as unsuccessful as the hunt for a better mousetrap. keep reading
10 Key Warning Signs of Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is considered highly curable when it is detected early! This is also when a patient has the most treatment choices, including Active Surveillance and focal therapy with few to no side effects. The problem is, early stage prostate cancer is a silent lurker with no symptoms. However... keep reading
Don’t Overlook the Kind of Prostate Cancer that Can Kill You
Over 1,200,000 men around the globe are diagnosed with prostate cancer (PCa) every year. They don’t all have the same disease, however. There are numerous cell lines with varying characteristics: “The disease is very heterogeneous in terms of grade, genetics, ploidy, and oncogene/tumor suppressor gene expression, and its biological, hormonal, and molecular characteristics are extremely keep reading
The Five Problems with TRUS Biopsy
Up till now, prostate cancer has been the only tumor cancer diagnosed by random luck. That’s right, random luck. The most common type of prostate biopsy is guided by transrectal ultrasound, or TRUS. It is considered the “gold standard” for prostate biopsy because it’s most widely used by urologists... keep reading
What is the Safest MRI Contrast Agent?
Contrast agent Before addressing the title question regarding safety, it’s important to understand what a contrast agent does during MRI prostate imaging. Multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) of the prostate relies on two or more imaging sequences, or parameters, each of which depicts certain tissue characteristics that the others do not. When the results are synchronized, we keep reading
How Much Gleason Pattern 4 Is Worth Worrying About?
In the 5+ years since we posted the blog below, a new grading system called Gleason grade group has simplified the two-number system, which was confusing for patients. For example, in Gleason 7 prostate cancer (PCa), what’s the difference between... keep reading
What Do We Know About Testosterone After 40 Years?
Once a dominant narrative has been established, it can be exceedingly difficult to return to an objective stance where the evidence again becomes paramount.[i] According to Dr. Abraham Morgantaler, the author of the above quote, for men with low testosterone blood levels (testosterone deficiency or TD), testosterone therapy is “simply good medicine.” Morgentaler is well keep reading