Month: September 2015

• September 30, 2015
• Imaging & mpMRI

Competition in MRI Technology

“Everyone is keeping up with the Joneses, and there are more Joneses than ever.” This statement from art critic Jerry Saltz refers to the buying habits of a public hungry for trendy art. However, it could as easily apply to MRI technology, where the strength of the magnet—measured in units called Tesla, or T—makes all keep reading

• September 27, 2015
• Focal Treatment & Laser Ablation

Designing Clinical Trials for Focal Salvage Ablation

Treating prostate cancer by thermal ablation uses extreme heat or cold to destroy the tissue. Prostate ablation was originally performed as a radical (total gland) treatment because prostate cancer was considered a multifocal disease. In other words, ablation was used as a substitute for surgical removal (prostatectomy) or radiation of the whole gland. It wasn’t keep reading

• September 21, 2015
• Other Treatments

What’s the Most Effective Prostate Cancer Treatment?

You’ve probably heard the saying that a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. It is a comic way of recognizing that groups of people with no unifying vision or systematic communication process are likely to fail at collective design. However, there is an effective antidote. It is an approach to gaining keep reading

• September 16, 2015
• General Prostate

Demythologizing the Gold Standard

We live in an age of medical specialties that “compete” for patients. In women’s health, for example, treating noncancerous growths called uterine fibroid tumors has traditionally been the territory of gynecologists. Gynecologists, like urologists, were trained in surgery so they often recommend hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus) as the gold standard for treating severe keep reading

• September 6, 2015
• Active Surveillance

Statins and Prostate Cancer: An Update

Last December I posted a blog entry on the possibility that statins, a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, can reduce the risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer (PCa). If you’re interested, I summarized the relationship between how statins control cholesterol and scientific theories about the connection with PCa; you can read it at https://sperlingprostatecenter.com/statins-prostate-cancer/. I try keep reading