Tag: Prostate cancer

For a decade, metformin carried a quiet reputation as a cancer fighter hiding in plain sight in millions of medicine cabinets. A rigorous new trial has now tested that reputation and come up short. The story is not quite finished, though. Buried in the fine print sits one group of men for whom the drug may have done something after all. keep reading

For decades, the gloved-finger exam was a standard part of every man's annual physical. Now the evidence is catching up with what many doctors suspected: the digital rectal exam misses too much and finds too little. With MRI able to view the entire prostate, major guidelines have quietly pushed the old exam to the bottom of the list. keep reading

For decades, doctors treated testosterone as the enemy of the prostate, a hormone to be cut off at all costs. The science now tells a far more nuanced story. Testosterone does not turn healthy prostate cells cancerous, and for men living with low testosterone, replacement therapy turns out to be both safe and effective when guided by proper testing. keep reading

As many as 75% of PSA tests come back falsely positive, and for years that single number sent men straight to a needle biopsy with all its risks. Today, noninvasive biomarker tests in blood and urine, paired with mpMRI, are reshaping who truly needs the procedure and who can safely be spared the discomfort and the worry. keep reading

Does a vasectomy cause prostate cancer? Will treatment inevitably ruin your sex life? Can changing your diet cure the disease outright? Myths like these spread fast and worry men needlessly. Here is a measured, evidence-based look at five of the most common, plus the focal-therapy perspective that so many popular discussions quietly leave out. keep reading

Your prostate has a secret line of defense that scientists only just discovered. Specialized immune cells called T cells travel to the prostate and stay there for months or years, standing guard against infection. Now researchers believe the same process that protects mouse prostates may apply to humans, and it could open a new door in prostate cancer treatment. keep reading

A New York Times reporter did solid work exposing the harms of PSA overscreening but missed something important. Between radical treatment and watchful waiting sits focal therapy: a minimally invasive, targeted option that the NCCN now recognizes, and that mpMRI makes more precise than ever. keep reading

Focal therapy destroys a prostate tumor while leaving healthy tissue intact. But once treatment is done, how do doctors know if it worked? A structured follow-up protocol using mpMRI is the current standard. Now a newly proposed PSMA-based scoring system called PSMA-FAB is aiming to complement that approach. keep reading

What if the very cells meant to protect your body are being hijacked to shield a tumor? In metastatic prostate cancer, that's exactly what can happen. Researchers are now launching a clinical trial to test whether combining radiation with targeted immune drugs can break through this defense and potentially point the way toward a cure. keep reading

A prostate MRI can detect cancer without contrast but how confident can a doctor be? DCE-MRI adds a third layer of information by capturing tumor blood flow patterns that plain MRI can't show. Gadolinium makes this possible, and modern formulations have an impressive safety record: over 170 million doses studied. keep reading