Prostate Cancer Wonder Treatment Options – Why Not Using Them?

Indeed, there have been a lot of new treatment options for prostate cancer that some are calling wonder solutions because of the alleged effectiveness in treating and even getting rid of the condition.

Many people insist that these treatment options can really help you survive prostate cancer.

The question is – if they are so effective, why are lots of doctors not recommending nor using them for their patients?

This is a very important question and one which the below news article covers. Apart from just covering the question, it also throws more light on these wonder prostate cancer treatment options.

Drug trials are rarely halted halfway through because the drug being tested is so effective — but that’s exactly what happened a few months ago at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, one of the foremost cancer centres in the world, where doctors were testing a powerful radiation drug for men with advanced prostate cancer.

Patients being given Radium-233 Chloride, known as Alpharadin TM, lived longer and experienced less pain and fewer side-effects compared with those on a placebo.

It was decided that the difference in outcomes between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ was so marked that it was unfair to withhold the drug from half of the men on the trial.

This is just one of several recent breakthroughs in prostate cancer treatment.

In September, Australian researchers announced they had found that certain types of oestrogen appear to block the growth of tumour cells in laboratory studies.

These tantalising developments are all the more important because there remains a daunting fight against prostate cancer — the most common and the second deadliest among men after lung cancer, killing around 10,000 men in the UK each year, or an average of more than one an hour.

While new treatments are being found to treat every stage of the disease, and older treatments are being refined and developed, mortality rates remain stubbornly high.

Only 51.1??per cent of men in the UK with prostate cancer, which affects the doughnut-shaped gland that surrounds the urethra near the bladder, are still alive five years after diagnosis.

That compares badly with the 91.9??per cent of Americans who manage to make the five-year mark, according to the CONCORD study conducted from 1990 to 1999 — the first worldwide analysis of cancer survival rates. This may be because Americans have traditionally taken a more aggressive approach to prostate cancer.

A recent U.S. study found that 75??per cent of men with low-risk prostate cancer had aggressive therapy including radiation treatment and radical prostatectomy.

‘In the UK, the default option is to tell the patient they have choices — and many opt to wait to see if the disease gets any worse before having treatment,’ says Chris Eden, a consultant urologist who regularly travels to the U.S. to research the latest techniques.

‘About 40 per cent of all patients diagnosed each year in the UK choose to have active surveillance, when nothing is done except for repeated monitoring with blood tests and prostate biopsy.’

This is despite the fact that surgery still seems the most effective way of improving outcomes for patients. A recent U.S. study of 404,604 patients has found that ‘with the exception of men over 80 years, surgery provides the most favourable survival rates in most patients’.

Mr Eden, who performs around 200 nerve-sparing keyhole prostate removals each year — carefully avoiding the nerves which are key to erectile function — feels there are ‘some lessons’ to be learned from the U.S. approach.

‘American men will research their options and take themselves to specialists who have published excellent results, rather than accept what is available locally,’ he says.

‘And when it comes to the other end of the treatment spectrum — men who can no longer be cured of their prostate cancer but can still be effectively treated — the UK also lags behind, not least because NICE (the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence) takes a long time to make decisions about whether a drug should be available through the NHS, sometimes rejecting drugs that show promise because they are too expensive.’

He says Americans also have far more regular tests for prostate specific antigen (PSA) — raised levels of which can be an early sign of the disease.

However, other experts are not convinced the U.S. approach is the right one.

Emma Malcolm, chief executive of the charity Prostate Action, says the comparisons between UK and U.S. mortality rates do not paint an accurate picture.

‘I suspect there is a lot of over-treating in America — where men who could have lived normal lives for decades undergo procedures, which often leave them with life-altering side-effects.’

Potential problems from surgery include incontinence and impotence.

Depending on the study, between 30 and 70 per cent of men in the UK who undergo prostate removal become impotent, and between two to 15 per cent suffer mild to severe incontinence.

However, as the recent trial at the Royal Marsden shows, these are exciting times in prostate cancer research, with UK academics leading the world in promising new drug therapies.

Here, we look at some of the latest developments…

ROBOTIC SURGERY

Surgery plays a very important role when it comes to treating early-stage prostate cancer — and by far the most common procedure is the radical prostatectomy, when the entire prostate is removed.

A growing number of radical prostatectomies are now carried out with the help of sophisticated robots which aid the surgeon as he or she carries out the procedure.

In the U.S., more than 60 per cent of radical prostatectomies are carried out with robotic assistance.

Ben Challacombe, a consultant urologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Prostate Centre, recently began performing prostatectomies using the latest Si HD robot.

‘This new system helps to achieve the best possible outcome in terms of cancer control, continence and potency,’ says Mr Challacombe.

Clinical trials show this method has improved results over non-robotic procedures, particularly regarding less post-operative pain and shorter stays in hospital.

BEST FOR: Men diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer.

 

CYBERKNIFE

Despite the name, the Cyberknife involves no cutting. It is, in fact, a precise form of radiation therapy where around 150 cross-beams of radiation are fired at the target from multiple directions.

Side-effects are similar to standard radiation therapy: 1-2 per cent of men will suffer incontinence and 30-50 per cent of men become impotent as a result of the treatment, although more surrounding healthy tissue is left unharmed.

Dr Katharine Pigott, a consultant clinical oncologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London and The Prostate Centre, says: ‘The attraction of the procedure is that it is an outpatient-based, one-week treatment, compared with between four and seven weeks of radiotherapy treatment as an outpatient.

‘It is less invasive than surgery, and with a faster recovery period.’
Consultant urologist Chris Eden says: ‘Cyberknife is only available in one (private) UK centre, which is unfortunate for patients who opt for radiotherapy, or who are unsuitable for surgery, as this does show significant promise.’

BEST FOR: Men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer.

 

ULTRASOUND

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is still considered to be an experimental treatment in the UK because there is no long-term data, but it is gaining ground because it is non-invasive and doesn’t interfere with the nerve supply, meaning a man’s sexual potency and continence are rarely affected.

HIFU uses high-frequency sound waves to superheat prostate cancer cells, destroying them.

A balloon is inserted via the rectum and is filled with cooling water to help protect the tissue of the rectum from burning.
HIFU is only available in a few NHS centres but is offered at a number of private clinics.

‘HIFU is available on the NHS but only in a trial setting after deliberations by NICE,’ explains Mr Eden.

‘This is because of concerns regarding a lack of effectiveness and a significant complication rate from published intermediate-term (up to five years) follow-up.’

BEST FOR: Men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer who do not wish to have surgery.

HORMONE THERAPY

Men who have more advanced forms of prostate cancer, which cannot be treated with surgery alone, can have a range of hormone therapies which work by reducing the amount of testosterone circulating in the blood, which ‘feeds’ the cancer.

In the past, these drugs often ceased to work after several years because patients eventually became resistant to them.

However, new developments hold out real hope to men who’ve reached this stage.
Abiraterone, which was launched at the end of September and can now be prescribed by doctors, is a new hormone-blocking drug which seems to extend life significantly and shrink tumours in men with advanced cancer.

Most hormone treatments focus on cutting testosterone production in the testes — the main site of production — but abiraterone is able to reduce the hormone throughout the body by inhibiting an enzyme essential to its production.

Dr Heather Payne, a consultant clinical oncologist at University College London Hospitals, was involved in clinical trials for the drug, which is manufactured by Janssen, part of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson.

She says: ‘Historically, there have been few treatment options for advanced prostate cancer when it relapses after hormonal therapy and chemotherapy, so this new treatment has the potential to meet a significant and previously unmet need.’

NICE and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) are currently assessing whether to approve the medication for use on the NHS. A decision from NICE is expected in May 2012.

Another exciting hormone reducing drug on the horizon is MDV1300, developed by Medivation, which is still undergoing clinical trials in Germany.

Lead researcher Professor Axel Heidenreich says it looks ‘very promising’ and could even prove more effective than abiraterone, as it gets to work blocking the creation of testosterone in the testes, the prostate and in the cancer itself.

‘I am hoping it will be available to patients within the next 12 months in the UK and elsewhere,’ he says.

BEST FOR: Men with prostate cancer that has spread. 

CHEMOTHERAPY

Just as for many other types of cancer, chemotherapy has been proven to be effective for men with advanced prostate cancer by slowing the progression of the disease.

Standard treatments, including docetaxel, which is taken with steroids, have now been supplanted by the next generation of chemotherapy drugs, specifically cabazitaxel, developed by Sanofi-Aventis, which has far fewer side-effects such as hair loss, nausea and diarrhoea.

Patients can take the drugs in tablet form, by injections or via a drip. But NICE reported last week that it will not recommended them, as it is too expensive.

‘I think it’s a pity if we don’t continue with it, as it is part of the stepping stones to further improvements,’ says Dr Tom Stuttaford, medical writer and a Trustee of the Urology Foundation. It will still be available to private patients.

BEST FOR: Men with advanced prostate cancer which no longer responds to hormone treatment.

CRYOTHERAPY

This therapy involves freezing the tissue of the prostate gland, which destroys all the cells within and leaves just the shell.

Doctors insert very fine needles into the prostate via the perineum (the skin between the scrotum and the rectum) and pass freezing gases through the needles until the temperature within the prostate drops to around minus 40c.

The prostate usually undergoes several freeze-thaw cycles until all the cells — including the cancer cells — are dead.

This relatively new therapy is not yet widely available, although there are six NHS cryotherapy clinics in London. There are also no long-term studies to show its effectiveness. Read more.

I hope you learned a thing or two from the above news article about the prostate cancer wonder treatment options.

You Can Survive Aggressive Prostate Cancer With Hormone Therapy And Radiation – New Study Says

Like we always say in this Prostate Cancer Website, more and more studies are being done on an almost daily basis to provide more solutions and better research for surviving prostate cancer. We owe the many researchers a lot for the awesome findings they come up with; many helping to save lots of lives from the scourge of this cancer.

One of such researches/studies has just indicated that those men who have had their cancers spread out of their prostate to other surrounding tissues (thus have aggressive prostate cancer) can now live much longer than previously thought, if they are treated using a combination of hormone therapy and radiation.

Read more about this in the below news article:

Men with prostate cancer that has spread to local surrounding tissues live longer and are less likely to die of the high-risk disease if treated with a combination of radiation and hormone therapy, rather than with the drug treatment alone, a study has found.

The finding could change the standard for treating this aggressive form of prostate cancer, which represents about one in five cases of the disease, said Dr. Padraig Warde, a radiation oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto who led the international study.

“The study shows combining radiation and hormone therapy improves overall survival by 23 per cent and disease-specific survival by 43 per cent, compared with treating with hormone therapy alone,” said Warde.

To conduct the study, 1,205 men with locally advanced prostate cancer in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. were randomly divided into two groups. Half received androgen-deprivation therapy to suppress testosterone production, while the other half were treated with the hormone therapy plus radiation.

After seven years, 66 per cent of men who had the hormone therapy alone were still alive, compared with 74 per cent who received the combination treatment. Among those in the hormone treatment-only group, 26 per cent died from their prostate cancer, compared with 10 per cent who received both therapies.

“The two of them together combined are the important thing,” said Warde. “You can’t use radiation alone. What it’s showing is that radiation plus hormones are better than hormones alone.”

Androgen deprivation therapy, given by intramuscular injection, works by starving prostate cancer cells of testosterone, which they need to multiply. The treatment also makes cancer cells more sensitive to the killing effects of radiation, Warde explained.

This year, an estimated 25,500 men in Canada will be diagnosed with cancer of the walnut-sided gland, and about 4,100 will die of the disease. About 15 to 20 per cent of cases are the aggressive or high-risk type with localized spread.

“And these are the bad actors,” said Warde of this form of the cancer. “These are the patients, if you look overall, who die of prostate cancer, whereas many of the people who present with earlier-stage disease, they actually will live very long even with or without treatment. They don’t die of prostate cancer — they die with it.

“But with these ones, a lot of the patients will die of prostate cancer.”

The study is published in the Nov. 2 issue of The Lancet, and Warde believes its findings will alter the practice of using just hormone therapy for locally advanced prostate cancer.

“There is substantial evidence that many, many patients … are treated with hormone therapy alone and are never referred for consideration of (radiation) treatment,” he said. “So they’re never given the chance of cure because with locally advanced disease, many urologists in particular — although I’m not picking on them — believed that this is incurable cancer and there was really no point in giving them additional treatment beyond hormones.”

The international research team enrolled and treated patients over 10 years beginning in 1995, and Warde said the radiation therapy used was typically “old-style” — employing lower doses of radiation in less finely targeted beams, compared with treatment today.

“So, in fact, there’s every reason to believe that with the radiation we use now … that the results are likely to be much better because we hopefully kill more cancer cells with the radiation and we’re much more precise now,” he said.

Some side-effects can occur, however, including damage to surrounding tissues like the rectum and bladder, which can cause tenderness, some bleeding and diarrhea. Warde said these effects are most pronounced in the first six to 12 months on average, but don’t seem to persist beyond three years following treatment.

Still, he believes that adding the radiation component will lead to a better outcome for many patients.

“It’s practice-changing in that we will be getting out to patients, physicians across North America and Europe … that actually these patients should no longer be treated with hormone therapy alone. They should be referred for consideration of radiation, and hopefully many of them will benefit and live longer and more productive lives.”

Dr. Martin Gleave, director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, does not see the study so much as a “game-changer,” but a confirmation of what cancer specialists have surmised for some time.

“The fact that adding radiation helps survival affirms our biases,” Gleave, a professor of urology at the University of British Columbia, said from Vancouver. “But on top of that, I think it will lead us in the future towards being more aggressive in managing the local disease.”

“Where we would have thought, or at least hypothesized, that maybe the horse is out of the barn and closing the barn door doesn’t make a difference … (the study suggests that) closing the barn door and preventing more horses from getting out does make a difference,” he said of the double-barrelled treatment to halt the migration of cancer cells.

Gleave said more aggressive treatment could mean using chemotherapy along with hormone-suppression and radiation, a triple combination that Warde’s team has already begun testing. Surgery might also be included in such a treatment regimen, Gleave added. Read more.

As you can see from the above news article, it’s never too late to give up, even if you have aggressive or end stage prostate cancer.

There’s always hope, like we like to say on this website… so you should always be POSITIVE while looking for how to survive prostate cancer!

No Prostate Cancer PSA Screening Recommended By U.S. Health Panel – Follow Up – More Speak Against It

Still on the No Prostate Cancer PSA Screening Recommended By U.S. Health Panel, more and more people continue to oppose this planned recommendation.  It’s important to hear the voices from many patients and survivors of the condition. They have been talking about how they were saved because of early detection.

Medical professionals however are quick to tell their patients not to listen to the proposed recommendation. Many of them have condemned it outrightly.

We have reported lots of such condemnation and more are still pouring out. In the below news article, Robert Joiner of StBeacon.org throws a lot more light into the planned no prostate cancer PSA screening.

Medical experts haven’t mentioned it yet, but the proposal to limit screening for prostate cancer might be applauded as a way to shave about $2.5 billion off the nation’s medical bill.

An estimated 30 million men spend $3 billion annually to get the screening, but a federal task force has just concluded that most men don’t need the procedure. While not putting a price tag on this proposed shift in policy, the task force did say some patients were being needlessly harmed by treatment they did not need.

This tentative recommendation, based on a review of major PSA studies by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, undoubtedly has injected lots of confusion and uncertainty into the debate about the value of PSA screening. PSA is a protein produced by the prostate gland. Blood is drawn to check the level of protein against age-related standards. If adopted, the recommendation of the task force would reverse a federal policy in effect since 1994. That’s the year the FDA urged men age 50 or older to get the test because elevated PSA levels might signal prostate cancer, although elevation could be caused by other factors.

One who concedes that the proposed new screening guidelines might have generated more confusion than clarity is Dr. Gerald Andriole, a prostate cancer expert at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine. He’s also the principal investigator for the National Cancer Institute’s prostate, lung, colorectal and ovarian screening trial.

“I would hate to think men read a headline that says ‘PSA No Good’ and decide to never get a PSA (test),” he says, “because there are some men who really need a PSA. The announcement, the way it came out, was a little bit of a disservice. We have to have a more nuanced approach to who gets screening. It’s the high risk men who need it.”

That nuanced approach, he says, would take into account those who are high risk. These include both African-American men and men with a family history of two or more cases of prostate cancer, he says. Aside from the way the task force’s work was reported, there was concern among some about what insurers might do next.

“What’s worrying me is that some insurance company might quit paying for PSA screening” across the board, Andriole says. “That would be really devastating. The result would be that it would be harder for men who really need PSA testing to get it because they would have to pay for it.”

The task force will seek public comment for 30 days before deciding whether to move forward with the changes, amend them or scrap them. In the meantime, Andriole is among physicians trying to explain what’s behind the recommendations.

“We’re overdoing screening,” he says. “What’s bad about mass screening is that if we just took about 100 men and all we knew about them was that they were all over the age of 50, we know that 3 percent of those men are destined to die of prostate cancer and 97 of them are not.”

Some of the 97 men might end up undergoing needless medical procedures, Andriole says.

“That’s why the task force says the horrors done to those 97 men are worse than the benefits that are received by the 3 percent of men,” he says.

The new strategy, he says, is to use PSA tests to make judgments about men in the high-risk populations or men whose PSA levels are rising at a rapid rate.

“The bottom line is that there are populations of men who have much higher than the 3 percent chance of dying of prostate cancer. For example, if we screen a group of 100 African-American men, probably 15 of them would benefit from the screening. So the risk-benefit ratio is much more in favor of screening men with high risks for prostate cancer.”

Others who should be screened, he says, include all men whose PSA levels are found to be rising rapidly.

If the federal government adopts the task force’s recommendation, savings are not guaranteed. Some doctors and patients might choose to ignore the recommendation, seeing screening as insurance against the disease. Source.

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