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Prostate Cancer
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Definition of Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is a disease in which cells in the prostate gland become abnormal and start to grow uncontrollably, forming tumors.
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Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer Linked to Heart Risks
TUESDAY, Oct. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Prostate cancer patients receiving androgen-deprivation therapy, a common form of hormone treatment proven to slow tumor growth and prolong life, may face a nearly threefold higher risk of dying from heart disease, a new study suggests.
The apparent danger results from a drop in testosterone levels that is central to androgen-deprivation therapy's (ADT) effectiveness at curbing prostate cancer, the study authors said.
This drop in testosterone can provoke insulin resistance, leading to type 2 diabetes, as well as a gain in body mass, body fat and so-called bad cholesterol. Collectively, this group of problems is called the "metabolic syndrome," a condition long-associated with cardiac complications.
"However, I think overall ADT does help people with prostate cancer, and until it's studied further this can't be considered proof that there's a connection between the cardiac effects and hormone therapy," said study author Dr. Henry K. Tsai, wh
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Global Gene Map Clears New Milestone
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 17 (HealthDay News) -- The second phase of the HapMap Project -- created to identify and catalog genetic similarities and differences among populations around the world -- has been completed by scientists from six countries.
The first phase, completed in 2005, provided data that's led to the development of techniques used in the search for genes associated with common diseases. It's also helped in the identification of 50 such disease-associated genes.
"The original HapMap provided the backbone for genome-wide association studies that have uncovered previously unsuspected genetic components of many diseases, leading to new areas of research," Mark Daly, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Human Genetic Research, said in a prepared statement.
"The second phase has tripled the amount of genetic variation assessed and describes up to 95 percent of common single-letter variations in the human genetic code," said Daly, co-author of a report in the
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Prostate Cancer Radiotherapy Won't Affect Sexual Function
MONDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDay News) High-dose precision radiation therapy doesn't harm the sexual function of prostate cancer patients, U.S. researchers say.
A team at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia tracked 155 men with intermediate- to high-risk prostate cancer who underwent intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), a technique that more precisely targets the tumor.
"IMRT is revolutionizing how we treat men with prostate cancer, because it improves our ability to avoid normal tissue. As a result, more radiation dose can be delivered to the prostate by increasing the amount of radiation each day. Increasing the radiation used each day is particularly attractive, because it also shortens the treatment time by several days," study lead author Dr. Mark Buyyounouski, attending physician in the radiology department at Fox Chase, said in a prepared statement.
"We need to make sure there's a balance between risk and benefit, and sexual function is a major consideration. For
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High Dose Radiation for Prostate Cancer Won't Raise Sexual Dysfunction
TUESDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Among prostate cancer patients undergoing a high-tech form of radiation therapy, exposure to a higher amount of radiation over a shorter time span poses no added risk for impaired sexual function, new research reveals.
"For men getting a high dose of radiation in a shorter amount of time than is typical -- meaning getting higher doses per day for fewer days -- a loss of sexual function is the chronic side effect that concerns most," noted study co-author Dr. Eric Horwitz, a clinical director in the department of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Medical Center in Philadelphia.
"But we found that sexual function wasn't any worse than when patients got radiation in the conventional high-dose way," he said.
Horwitz and lead author Mark Buyyounouski, also at Fox Chase, were expected to present their team's findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, in Los Angeles.
The finding comes on the hee
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Better Prostate Cancer Survival for Men Taking Statins
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Men who were taking statins to lower their cholesterol had a 10 percent greater chance of being cured of prostate cancer by radiation therapy 10 years after diagnosis, a new study finds.
It's an "intriguing and very interesting finding," but falls short of supporting statin use for all prostate cancer patients, said study author Dr. Michael J. Zelefsky, a professor of radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He was to deliver the results Wednesday at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting, in Los Angeles.
"But I would encourage men to see their internist and get on the medications if their blood cholesterol warranted it," he said.
Zelefsky reported on 871 men given radiation therapy for prostate cancer between 1995 and 2000. The five-year relapse-free survival rate for the 168 men taking statins was 91 percent while the 10-year survival rate was 76 percent. That com
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Health Highlights: Nov. 2, 2007
Survival traits for certain kinds of cancers are passed from parents to children, concludes a Swedish study reported in the November issue of The Lancet Oncology journal.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm analyzed a Swedish family database that included three million families and more than 1 million cancer patients. The scientists found that children whose parents had good survival rates after being diagnosed with breast, lung, prostate or colorectal cancer had better survival rates for those same cancers than people whose parents died within 10 years of being diagnosed with those cancers.
The increased risk of death for children whose parents had died earlier was 75 percent for breast cancer, 107 percent for prostate cancer, 44 percent for colorectal cancer, and 39 percent for lung cancer.
"In conclusion, our findings provide support for the hypothesis that cancer-specific survival of a patient can be predicted from previous parental survival from cancer at
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Radiation Seed Treatment Helps Younger Men Fight Prostate Cancer
FRIDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Radiation seed implants, known as brachytherapy, are just as effective for treating prostate cancer in men 60 and younger as they are for older men, a new study finds.
Brachytherapy is a minimally invasive procedure in which small radioactive seeds are placed in the prostate to kill cancer cells. Recovery time after seed implantation is much shorter than surgery, and studies have found brachytherapy to be as effective as surgery.
However, men 60 and younger are often advised to have surgery to remove part or all of the prostate, because many surgeons believe it's more effective long-term, according to background information in a news release about the study.
In this study, researchers analyzed the outcomes of more than 1,700 men with localized prostate cancer treated with brachytherapy at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York between 1990 and 2005.
They found that men 60 and younger had the same outcomes as older men.
"These results su
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Gene Variant Doubles Risk of Prostate Cancer in Black Men
FRIDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- A variant of a gene that doubles the risk of prostate cancer in black men has been identified, and researchers say the discovery could lead to new treatments.
Almost twice as many black men develop prostate cancer as white men, researchers report. This study confirms that common genetic variants are linked to increased risk for prostate cancer. One of these variants, on the 8q24 gene, confers a particularly significant risk to black men.
"We found a gene involved in increased risk for prostate cancer in African-Americans," said lead researcher Rick Kittles, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "This gene is involved in DNA repair."
In the study, Kittles' team looked at the 8q24 region of chromosome 8 and compared genotypes of 490 black men with prostate cancer to 567 controls.
Their report was published in the Oct. 31 online edition of Genome Research.
Finding these variants enables researchers to find out ho
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Health Highlights: Nov. 3, 2007
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has asked a California distribution company to recall pills and capsules advertised as "all natural" products to correct erectile dysfunction.
Calling True Man Sexual Energy Nutrient Capsules and Energy Max Energy Supplement Men's Formula Capsules illegal drug products, the FDA said in a news release that the supplements' ingredients are potentially harmful and could cause dangerously low blood pressure.
In a letter to the owner of America True Man Health Inc., of West Covina, Calif., the FDA said that the products have substances with chemical structures very similar to the active ingredients in FDA-approved prescription drugs, such as Viagra. The FDA has not approved the products distributed by America True Man Health Inc., and the labels don't declare the the active ingredients thione, an analog of sildenafil; or piperadino vardenafil, an analog of vardenafil.
These substances can be especially harmful to men with diabetes, the FDA said
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Health Highlights: Nov. 4, 2007
Cargill Inc., one of the worlds largest meat producers, has recalled more than 1 million pounds of ground beef because of the possibility it contains E. coli bacteria, the Associated Press reports.
The announcement was made Saturday by John Keating, president of Cargill Regional Beef, the wire service reports. The beef was produced between Oct. 8 and Oct. 11 at the company's Wyalusing, Pa. plant and was distributed nationwide to retailers, including Giant, Shop Rite, Stop & Shop, Wegman's and Weis.
No illnesses have been reported, Keating told the A.P., but a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection of an Oct. 8 sample found possible contamination from E. coli O157:H7.
In early October Cargill recalled more than 800,000 pounds of ground beef distributed through Sam's Club. At least four cases of E. coli poisoning were confirmed.
Cargill has established a phone number for people with questions or those who want to report illness: 877-455-1034. The company's meat business i
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Clinical Trials Update: Nov. 6, 2007
If you have incurable head and neck cancer and have failed at least one course of standard platinum-based chemotherapy, you may be eligible for this clinical trial.
The research site is in Albany, N.Y.
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Experimental Drug Fights Prostate Cancer
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 7 (HealthDay News) -- In mice, an investigational agent called VN/14-1 proved effective in treating human prostate cancer, say researchers at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
The five-week study found that daily injections of VN/14-1 in mice implanted with human prostate cancer cells resulted in up to a 50 percent reduction in tumor volume.
VN/14-1 blocks the breakdown of vitamin A-derived retinoic acid, the researchers explained. The drug appears to tackle cancer in multiple ways.
"This potent agent causes cancer cells to differentiate, forcing them to turn back to a non-cancerous state -- which is what we expected it would do -- but it also stops cancer growth by arresting the cell cycle and pushes cells to die by inducing programmed cell death," senior investigator Vincent C.O. Njar, associate professor in the department of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics in the School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
"These functions were une
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Clinical Trials Update: Nov. 12, 2007
If you are 18 or older and have prostate cancer with metastatic bone disease, you may be eligible for this study.
The research site is in Austin, Texas.
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Obesity Linked to Prostate Cancer Death Rates
MONDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- In another sign that too much weight spells health problems, new research suggests that fat men are twice as likely to die after being diagnosed with prostate cancer than men of normal weight.
The research doesn't confirm a cause-and-effect link between obesity and a higher risk of death from prostate cancer, and it's not clear if losing weight would help patients after they're diagnosed with the disease.
Still, "if you look down the list of factors that are most predictive of a bad outcome, this [excess weight] ranks up there pretty high," said study co-author Dr. Matthew R. Smith, an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the disease strikes one in six American men and is the most prevalent form of non-skin cancer in the United States. Risk rises with age, with more than 65 percent of all cases diagnosed in men over the age of 65.
However, prostate cancer can successfully be
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