Tag: prostate cancer

NOTE: On 11/5/2020 I published an updated blog post on this topic. You can read it here. When you’re about to pop a prescription pill into your mouth, do you momentarily wonder if it might contain a tiny amount of something dangerous in addition to the active drug? You probably don’t. You trust the pharmaceutical keep reading

“Your biopsy results came back positive.” The news you feared is now out in the open. You can’t turn back the clock. You can’t deny it. You can’t wish it away. YOU HAVE PROSTATE CANCER. That surely seems like the bad news. If there’s good news, it’s that your cancer is still confined to the keep reading

Everyone knows about the law of unintended consequences, right? A good idea backfires. A classic example happened during British rule of colonial India. The city of Delhi was overrun by cobras – very dangerous poisonous snakes – and the governor was determined to get the situation under control. What better way to eliminate cobras than keep reading

Not long ago, I posted a blog on the ability of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) to boost the effectiveness of radiation therapy for prostate cancer. This synergistic effect is very important for men with intermediate or higher risk cancer who can’t have (or don’t want) radical prostatectomy, since the greater the risk, the more likely keep reading

What’s the best way to deal with prostate cancer (PCa)? The obvious answer is, do something about it. For decades, “doing something” meant radical prostatectomy (RP). In other words, surgically remove it all. More recently, the pendulum has started swinging the other way in a surge toward active surveillance (AS). From 2010 to 2015, the keep reading

Testosterone is a wonderful thing that makes men MEN. In adult males, roughly 10% of testosterone is converted to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Both testosterone and DHT are androgens (hormones) produced by the testes and adrenal gland. They circulate through the body, shaping male sexual development and adult male sexual function. But they would be ineffective without keep reading

Question: What goes up and hasn’t come down? Answer: The use of Active Surveillance in the U.S. A February, 2019 study[i] examined U.S. management trends for low-risk prostate cancer since 2010. Prior to that, the standard of care for low-to-intermediate risk PCa was an “elephant gun” approach aimed at eradicating PCa by obliterating the gland. keep reading

Multifocal prostate cancer In the not-too-distant past, medical schools taught young urologists that all prostate cancer (PCa) is multifocal – scattered throughout the gland. The belief was, “If you find it in one place, it must also be in other places even if undetectably small.” As a result, they carried this belief into their clinical keep reading