Category: Active Surveillance
Medical language is filled with technical terms that are virtually incomprehensible for many patients because in many cases they have Latin or Greek roots. Even when doctors are speaking English, however, they aren’t all using the same terms for the same thing. Take, for example, the expression Active Surveillance (AS). AS is often understood by keep reading
With Active Surveillance on the rise, one would think that doctors who support AS for their prostate cancer patients have similar commitment and protocols. A new study (Sep. 2016) in the British Journal of Urology International (BJUI) spells out 8 areas of qualitative differences among AS doctors: physician comfort with active surveillance protocol selection beliefs keep reading
When it comes to Active Surveillance (AS) decisions, there’s good news and bad news. The good news: based on biopsy results, more doctors are recommending AS for prostate cancer (PCa) patients with insignificant disease. The bad news: the biopsy might have missed significant PCa so the patient can’t know for sure if AS is a keep reading
Testosterone has important benefits for men. When it’s at a normal level, it helps develop muscle mass, decrease fat, avoid depression, keep bones strong, maintain libido, improve erections, and may help reduce risks of cardiovascular and cognitive disease. However, about 40% of men over the age of 45 have symptoms of reduced blood levels of keep reading
The word is out: Patients with early stage, low risk prostate cancer have often been rushed into radical prostatectomy when many of them could have afforded to wait to seek treatment—possibly for years. Untold numbers of men were left with urinary and sexual problems that lasted for months, or were never fully resolved. For low keep reading
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. – Bertrand Russell What man over the age of, say, 45 doesn’t look back—perhaps nostalgically—on the lusty days of yore? Somewhere between the ages of eighteen to thirty, men reach a sexual peak in which desire keep reading
It’s always reassuring to receive affirmation, especially when offering a leading edge medical program to prostate cancer patients. Such was the case for us at the Sperling Prostate Center with the December, 2015 publication of a UCLA Medical Center study on the value-added of multiparametric MRI during Active Surveillance (AS). The authoritative Journal of Urology keep reading
I have written on the importance of a healthy lifestyle, especially diet and nutrition, which is correlated with preventing prostate cancer (PCa) and other diseases. (NOTE: You can read some of my related blogs from links at the end of this one.) I came across a new multi-center Italian study that addresses the question: does keep reading
The annual American Urological Society meeting (AUA 2015, May 15-19) has more presentations than ever on multiparametric MRI detection of prostate cancer, MRI targeted biopsies, MRI/ultrasound fusion, and MRI-guided focal therapies. The urologic world is sitting up and taking notice as advanced imaging is changing the prostate cancer landscape. I will be sharing selected presentations keep reading
In 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a recommendation against routine PSA screening for otherwise healthy men. Almost immediately, prostate cancer support organizations and hundreds of clinical professionals raised an outcry. While acknowledging that the non-prostate cancer specific blood test often led to over-detection and over-treatment of indolent prostate cancer, countless lives keep reading
