Novel Approach For Suppressing Prostate Cancer Development

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have found that inactivating a specific biomarker for aggressive prostate cancer blocks the development of prostate cancer in animal models.

Researchers say the upcoming study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—now available online—may lead to a novel cancer therapy for humans.

"This research has far-reaching implications in a wide range for human cancers," says Amy Lee, Ph.D., the study's principal investigator and the associate director for basic research and holder of the Freeman Cosmetics Chair at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "It is a breakthrough study."

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and develops through successive stages. The glucose-regulated protein GRP78 has been identified as a crucial entity in the development of prostate cancer by promoting cancer cell proliferation, mediating oncogenic signaling and protecting cancer cells against cell death resulting from the stress of tumor development, Lee explains. By suppressing GRP78 expression or activity, the USC researchers found that they could block prostate cancer activation and development resulting from the loss of PTEN, a powerful tumor suppressor gene for a number of human cancers.

Prostate Cancer Therapy Hampers Sex Life

Men who take hormonal therapy to treat early-stage prostate cancer are twice as likely to suffer sexual problems than men who forgo treatment, according to a new study. And researchers say the negative side effects of the popular treatment may come with few proven benefits in fighting the disease itself.

About 90% of the 180,000 men in the U.S. diagnosed with prostate cancer each year are diagnosed at an early stage of the disease, when the cancer has not spread to other areas. Approximately 40% of these men are initially treated without surgery or radiation because the risks of the aggressive treatment may be too great. These men are either treated with hormone therapy or adopt a "watch-and-wait" approach without treatment.

Prostate cancer grows in response to male sex hormones, such as testosterone. Hormone therapy for prostate cancer is called androgen deprivation therapy, or ADT. The man is given a medication that decreases the level of male sex hormones -- called androgens -- in the body.

Oily fish may boost prostate cancer survival rate

A recent study revealed that increasing your intake of fish and omega-3 rich seafood may improve your prostate cancer rate by 38 percent.

The study adds to a small but growing body of evidence linking fish consumption and omega-3 to potential cancer benefits. Over 20,000 men were followed for 382,144 person-years of follow-up, during which time 2,161 cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed and 230 deaths from the disease recorded. All of the men were free of the disease at the start of the study in 1983.

Both high fish and seafood omega-3 fatty acid intakes were associated with significant reductions in the risk of prostate cancer death men, compared to men with lower consumptions.

“These results suggest that fish intake is unrelated to prostate cancer incidence but may improve prostate cancer survival,” concluded the researchers.

New Findings Offer Fresh Hope To Men With Prostate Cancer That Has Returned After Attempted Cure

The link between the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test and the detection of prostate cancer is well-established. In new findings released publicly for the first time today, Australian and New Zealand researchers have demonstrated how two serial measures of PSA can be used to accurately predict a patient's prognosis when prostate cancer returns after attempted cure.

Survival can vary enormously among patients whose prostate cancer returns after curative treatments (such as surgery or radiotherapy). Some men can live for many years without the need for treatment however others will have very limited survival in spite of immediate intervention. Up to now, doctors have not been able to predict survival in these men and therefore have not been able to identify those who would benefit from participating in trials of new therapies. Nor have they known which men are able to avoid treatment for many years and therefore not risk the side effects that these treatments commonly cause.

Radiation oncologist and TROG (Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group) researcher at Calvary Mater Newcastle, Professor Jim Denham and colleagues from Australia and New Zealand obtained the results by examining data from one of the world's largest prostate cancer clinical trials - TROG 96.01.

"PSA has been commonly used in clinical management of the disease but up until now, no one has been able to forecast accurately what will happen when cancer returns after curative treatment. Two factors - the time for PSA to rise after curative treatment and the speed at which the PSA is rising - are powerful prognostic tools for specialists and can now be used to plan future treatments on a sounds basis," Professor Denham said.

Genetic Risk Factors May Tailor Prostate Cancer Screening Approaches

Men with a family history of prostate cancer and African-American men are particularly susceptible to the disease, with a twofold to sevenfold increased risk. Assessing risk in these populations has been difficult.

"There have been years of effort to try to identify genes and genetic mutations associated with prostate cancer as there are for breast cancer," said Veda N. Giri, M.D., director of the Prostate Cancer Risk Assessment Program (PRAP) at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia. "Prostate cancer is a more genetically complex disease."

"When we compared African-American men in PRAP to the high-risk Caucasian men in PRAP, we did find a difference," she said. "African-American men tended to carry more of these genetic risk markers compared to the Caucasian men. Since African-American men carry more of these particular genetic markers, they may be more informative for prostate cancer risk assessment in African-American men."

The researchers then studied how these markers influence time to prostate cancer diagnosis. "We found a trend that African-American men who carried more of these risk markers tended to develop prostate cancer earlier," Giri said. This finding did not reach statistical significance.

Giri said the take-home message from this study is that genetic markers associated with prostate cancer risk need to be characterized in prospective screening populations in order to determine how to incorporate them into risk assessment for prostate cancer, particularly for men at high-risk for the disease. "These markers may have significant use in personalizing the early detection of prostate cancer in men at high-risk in order to provide tailored recommendations for screening and diagnosis of this disease," said Giri.

Growing Number Of Young Prostate Cancer Patients Need 'sexual Rehabilitation'

Prostate cancer is being detected and treated at an earlier age, resulting in more cases of erectile dysfunction in younger men. While for many this is a temporary setback, for some it can take much longer and others will never recover their former capability.

Dr Michael Lowy from Sydney Men's Health, said the result was a growing demand for "sexual rehabilitation" services, an evolving scientific and clinical branch of sexual medicine and urology.

"As well the obvious functional impact, many men aren't prepared for the emotional downside," Dr Lowy said. "Sexual rehabilitation involves treatments that can help men and their partners deal with this issue at both a physical and psychological level."

Behavior and Lifestyle Factors Influence Cancer Risk Among The Elderly

According to a recent research, behavioral risk factors have a significant effect on cancer risk in the U.S. elderly population. Understanding these factors may allow clinicians to make specific recommendations for their elderly patients in order to reduce their risks of future cancers.

"About 80 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in the elderly, and more than 80 percent of known risk factors are potentially preventable," said Igor Akushevich, Ph.D., senior research scientist, Center for Population Health and Aging, Duke University, Durham, N.C.

"So far, we have not come to the stage where we are able to make specific recommendations regarding risk factors," Akushevich said. "However, we can confirm several of them which are known. As expected, we see associations of cigarette smoking with lung cancer. Moderate physical activities are capable of decreasing cancer risk, as well as careful health care insurance strategy and, hypothetically, general optimism in life."

Although the results need to be verified in subsequent studies, the researchers found significant contributions from a variety of lifestyle, behavioral and demographic variables on the risk of breast, lung, colon and prostate cancers among the elderly.

Aspirin Could Treat Prostate Cancer, For Real?

It was recently found that aspirin can reduce the symptoms of prostate cancer. If this is true, this can be like a really major breakthrough!

Men already diagnosed with the cancer who were given a daily dose of aspirin or another anti-inflammatory, such as ibuprofen, had reduced levels of prostate specific antigens (PSA) a protein used as an indication of the severity of the disease.

But scientists are still not sure whether the findings actually mean an improvement in the disease. The pill could be reducing PSA levels without impacting on the cancer. Alarmingly, if this is the case, men who regularly take aspirin may be masking the symptoms of the cancer.

The use of aspirin resulted in a 9 per cent drop in PSA levels, the researchers said.

The biggest reduction appeared in men who had already been diagnosed with prostate cancer – a suggestion that it was treating the cancer rather than the symptoms.

The normal level of PSA increases naturally with age and high levels can indicate a prostate condition that is not cancer or is benign.

Bone Loss May Result From Cancer Treatment

A recent study in Canada has found that breast and prostate cancer treatment can foster bone loss. The scientists explain how loss of bone mass might affect 46,000 people diagnosed with breast and prostate cancer each year and place them at increased risk for osteoporosis and fractures.

"Our study also looked at possible medications that can reverse or halt bone loss," says Dr. Fred Saad, lead author and director of urologic oncology at the Université de Montréal's Faculty of Medicine and the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM), who completed the exhaustive study with colleagues from McMaster University, the Université Laval, the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia.

"Bone is a dynamic tissue which undergoes a cyclic process of breaking down and rebuilding," adds Dr. Saad. "Medications called bisphosphonates help with the rebuilding process and have been successfully used to combat osteoporosis, which is good news for cancer patients."

Dr. Saad and colleagues evaluated data from more than 3,500 breast and prostate cancer studies and concluded that breast cancer patients treated with aromatase inhibitors were more likely to have bone loss and fractures compared to patients who didn't receive the therapy. Similarly, men who received androgen deprivation therapy to treat their prostate cancer had an increased risk of bone disorders. Although the numbers vary from one study to the next (from five to 45 percent), an elevated risk is consistently observed.

"Awareness of the incidence of cancer-associated bone loss raises issues for clinicians who should identify those patients who are most at risk for fractures and prescribe treatment strategies," says Dr. Saad. "This information is not only a concern for the specialists, but also for the general practitioners who frequently encounter these patients."

This is another eye opener for people who are still unaware of the dangers of treatment. This is why we try our best to spread the word out about natural healing and hopefully, people will start to take notice.

Soy, The Prostate Protector

There used to be a time when only women were interested in soy. Well not anymore. Recently, it was found that increased intake of soy isoflavones significantly reduce the risk of prostate cancer by as much as 50%. With over 500,000 new cases diagnosed each year, having soy in your diet may be a good step towards the prevention of prostate cancer.

How can soy have such a profound effect on prostate cancer? Soy isoflavones may reduce testosterone levels and inhibit an enzyme involved in the metabolism of testosterone. It is this hormone that may increase prostate cancer risk. But before you start reaching for your wife or girlfriend’s “made for her” soy-fortified foods, know this: these results occur in men eating whole soy foods, such as edamame, tofu, tempeh and miso. These are things that you should add to your diet if you are a man over the age of 60. Your prostate will thank you.

While some recent studies have raised concerns about soy's safety profile, most nutritionists agree that in moderation (up to 25 g of soy protein per day), whole soy foods are safe and beneficial. If you prefer to avoid soy, you can use other foods and supplements for prostate protection such as saw palmetto, pygeum, vitamins D and E, boron and cruciferous vegetables.

Having an enlarged prostate was once thought to be the result of aging, genetics and hormones, but that view is changing. The new view is that benign prostate hypertrophy (BPH), another term for prostate enlargement, may be somewhat preventable.

A recent study showed that, in aging men, physical activity can maintain prostate health and reduce the risk of developing BPH by up to 25%, compared to those who are sedentary. Light activity had some effect, but the strongest prostate protection came from regular moderate-to-vigorous activity.

Researchers think it’s cardiovascular fitness that makes the difference, by reducing body-wide inflammation. Men who have metabolic syndrome or heart disease are more likely to have BPH, as are those who suffer from erectile dysfunction. All three problems are associated with inflammation. And regular exercise helps prevent all three, in part by reducing the abdominal fat that feeds inflammation.

The anti-aging benefits of exercise can improve almost every aspect of health, and as this study shows, these benefits may be especially relevant to inflammation control and prostate health. So lace up your walking shoes, dust off your bike—whatever form of exercise you find most appealing—to walk away from the inflammation-related problems of aging.

Saw Palmetto Therapeutic For Urinary Symptoms?

Physician-scientists are studying an herbal supplement that might aid in reducing the symptoms of an enlarged prostate in men. Recent figures show that benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) occurs in an estimated 50 percent of men over the age of 50 and in 75 percent of men 80 and older.

The research team, led by Dr. Steven A. Kaplan, professor of urology at Weill Cornell Medical College and attending urologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell, will study the affects of using saw palmetto extract compared to a placebo, with the hope of reducing the symptoms of BPH. Symptoms include difficulty starting a urine stream (hesitancy and straining), decreased strength of the urine stream (weak flow), feeling that the bladder is not completely empty, an urge to urinate again soon after urinating and pain during urination (dysuria).

It is theorized that compounds called phytoesterols, found in saw palmetto, might prevent prostate enlargement. Experts believe that prostate swelling may be caused by a rise in dihydrotestosterone (DHT) -- a testosterone derivative involved in prostate growth -- over a male's lifespan, especially during middle age. Scientists are unclear as to what causes the hormone to rise with time. However, escalating estrogen within the body has been correlated with, but has not been proven to be, directly promoting BPH. Like a basketball player blocking a shot from going into a basket, phytoesterols in saw palmetto might block natural estrogen from binding to receptors in the body.

New Tool Helps Physicians Tailor Hormone Therapy For High-risk Prostate Cancer Patients

Using one of the largest databases of prostate cancer outcomes in the United States, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have developed a prediction tool that uses a patient's clinical information to estimate the benefit of adding androgen deprivation therapy of various durations to radiation therapy.

Such hormone therapy has been shown to help radiation kill prostate cancer cells and improve survival in men at a high risk of recurrence, but it is associated with significant side effects. Even when the cancer has been characterized as high-risk, the degree of benefit from the addition of androgen deprivation can be quite variable.

"Studies have generally lumped patients into three levels of risk, and physicians have recommended hormone therapy based on these studies," says Niraj H. Pahlajani, a resident in the radiation oncology department at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "Our experience tells us that prostate patients can't be lumped together into broad categories and expected to respond the same way to treatment even when they fall into similar risk-categories. Fortunately, we've been able to generate a nuanced prediction tool that incorporates disease burden and individualizes treatment recommendations. We can enter each patient's clinical information and estimate the probability of the cancer coming back using different durations of hormone therapy to determine the best course."

Pahlajani says other similar tools exist to predict cancer treatment outcomes, but none is as personalized and none has yet been used to estimate the gains from different lengths of hormone therapy. The Fox Chase researchers used two key factors derived via biopsy to identify subtle differences among those at intermediate to high-risk of recurrence. The two factors were the percent of cancer-positive tissue identified and the percent of that positive tissue with a Gleason grade of four or five.

"With this information, we're able to personalize each man's treatment by quantifying the optimal duration of hormones based on his individual factors," Pahlajani says.

The number of prostate cancer cases is increasing rapidly. Fortunately not all these tumors need to be operated - some are slow growing or indolent.

The question remains: how do we reliably establish which tumor is aggressive and which is not?

The answer may well be given by the PCA3 (Prostate Cancer Gene 3) test, a breakthrough in the diagnosis of prostate cancer. PCA3 is a new tool available in a simple urine test to help make better biopsy decisions - in combination with Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) - in the diagnosis of prostate cancer. It is available as the PROGENSA(TM) PCA3 assay in Europe and is the first gene-based diagnostic test in this field. It is an efficient tool to help decide if prostate biopsy is really needed to diagnose prostate cancer in men suspected of having the condition. PCA3 is, unlike PSA, prostate cancer specific. This means that the gene is only produced by prostate cancer cells and is not affected by prostate size. It discriminates better than PSA between prostate cancer and benign/non-cancerous prostate diseases such as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH, i.e. prostate enlargement) or prostatitis (infection of the prostate). Therefore, PCA3 gives very useful information in deciding if a biopsy is really needed.

Most men with BPH symptoms will never need surgery

According to researchers' best estimates, about 3 out of every 10 men in Europe will handle their prostate symptoms without medication or surgery and perhaps only 1 in 10 will have surgery. The rest will use medications, including herbal medicines, if their symptoms become too troublesome.

In Germany and other European countries, drugs called alpha blockers have taken over as the most common treatment choice for benign prostatic hyperplasia. These drugs were originally developed to reduce high blood pressure, but prostate symptoms will also improve at least a little for 60% of the men who use them.

In analysing the research results for surgery, the Institute concluded that the original surgical procedures still have the best results. A few of the new surgical techniques appear to have good results - for example, possibly shortening the time needed in hospital. But more research is needed to confirm this. And most of the new techniques use equipment that has not yet been tested in enough trials.

Prostate surgery can be very effective, but the adverse effects are a major concern for many men. Some of the newer techniques might have fewer adverse effects, but they may be so much less effective that the symptoms return, as bad as ever, within a couple of years.

Risk Of Bladder And Rectal Cancer Increases with Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer

As I've been saying again and again, nothing beats natural. Today, another risk was added to growing number of risks that you can get from radiation therapy. That's why I've always been an advocate of natural healing. There are many choices in curing prostate cancer but there are certain levels of risk that can make you think twice. With natural healing, risks are minimal, if any.

The relative risk of bladder cancer developing after external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and external beam radiotherapy-brachytherapy compared to radical prostatectomy was 1.88, 1.52 and 1.85, respectively. This is compared to the general United States population the standardized incidence ratio for bladder cancer developing after radical prostatectomy, external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and external beam radiotherapy-brachytherapy was 0.99, 1.42, 1.10 and 1.39, respectively. The relative risk of rectal cancer developing after external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and external beam radiotherapy-brachytherapy compared to radical prostatectomy was 1.26, 1.08 and 1.21, respectively. The standardized incidence ratio for rectal cancer developing after radical prostatectomy, external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and external beam radiotherapy-brachytherapy was 0.91, 0.99, 0.68 and 0.86, respectively.

Prostate Need-To-Knows

Unlike the old days when people were somewhat ignorant about prostate cancer, nowadays, it seems like a natural thing. Problem is, as educated as people seem, there are still some who are uninformed. There are also some information you might not know. This article is for you people.

Prostate cancer only occurs in males because it affects the prostate gland, a walnut-sized organism near the bladder and anus in men. Urine is carried through a tube that goes through the prostate, and seminal fluid is affected by the prostate. Consequently, the prostate is quite important in areas of waste elimination and procreation.

Specifically, this typically slow-moving type of cancer (called adenocarcinoma) focuses on cells in the prostate. Gradually, the prostate cancer spreads and is often undetected by the victim or the doctor until it has progressed. However, it’s important to note that prostate cancer can also grow more aggressively. That’s why self-exams are critical.

Like breast self-exams, prostate gland self-exams are relatively simple, but many individuals neglect to perform them. That’s tragic for the 234,460 men who will get cancer this year. (Fortunately, only about 1 in 34 will succumb to their prostate cancer due to recognition of early symptoms or signs of the illness which are “caught” by either the patient or his physician.)

Some of the symptoms include an enlarged prostate and difficulty urinating. Pain may also be present.

Try to do a self test as it is always better to find out earlier. It may give you more options too.