Tag Archives: urology

Vaccine therapy for prostate cancer patients with rising PSA examined — ScienceDaily

As part of a Phase II clinical trial, adult patients with advanced prostate cancer (as evidenced by two rising prostate-specific antigen or PSA values and no visible metastasis) whose cancer is resistant to hormone therapy and had either surgery or radiation were recruited from member institutions in the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group. In their work, published in the current online edition of European Urology, ECOG-ACRIN investigators examined two different experimental treatment options. In step one, patients were treated with PROSTVAC-V/TRICOM and PROSTVAC-F/TRICOM. PROSTVAC-V is derived from a vaccinia virus that was used for many years to vaccinate against smallpox. …

Laparoscopic surgery for bladder cancer leads to good long-term cancer control — ScienceDaily

Open radical cystectomy, or removal of the bladder though open surgery, is the treatment of choice for muscle invasive and high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer; however, the surgery can lead to serious complications. Some hospitals are using minimally invasive procedures such as laparoscopic radical cystectomy, but there is little information on the effectiveness of these procedures for preventing cancer recurrence over the long term. To address this, the European Association of Urology (EAU)-section of Uro-technology has been building a large database of laparoscopic radical cystectomy procedures performed across Europe. …

Common prostate cancer treatment associated with decreased survival in older men — ScienceDaily

The findings are particularly important for men with longer life expectancies because the therapy exposes them to more adverse side effects, and it is associated with increased risk of death and deprives men of the opportunity for a cure by other methods. The research study has been published online in European Urology.� The focus of the new study is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), in which an injectable or implanted medication is used to disrupt the body’s ability to make testosterone. ADT is known to have significant side effects such as heart disease, diabetes, increased weight gain and impotence; however a growing body of evidence suggests ADT may in fact lead to earlier death…

Practice makes perfect in cancer surgery — ScienceDaily

Using data provided by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) the investigators studied 2,802 patients who underwent the procedure between 1994 and 2008 in Ontario and found that higher volume hospital and surgeons were associated with less post-operative complications and better overall survival. “These results are intriguing and will undoubtedly lead to some controversy in their interpretation,” says Dr. …

Prostate cancer diagnosis improves with MRI technology — ScienceDaily

An ultrasound machine provides an imperfect view of the prostate, resulting in an under-diagnosis of cancer, said J. Kellogg Parsons, MD, MHS, the UC San Diego Health System urologic oncologist who, along with Christopher Kane, MD, chair of the Department of Urology and Karim Kader, MD, PhD, urologic oncologist, is pioneering the new technology at Moores Cancer Center. “With an ultrasound exam, we are typically unable to see the most suspicious areas of the prostate so we end up sampling different parts of the prostate that statistically speaking are more likely to have cancer,” said Parsons, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Urology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “The MRI is a game-changer…

Less radical procedures offer similar cancer control compared to surgery for kidney cancer patients

Dr. Thompson says radical nephrectomy — surgical removal of the entire kidney — has historically been the standard of care for management of kidney cancer; however, partial nephrectomy — surgical removal of tumors from a kidney while sparing healthy tissue -has become increasingly more common because of its nephron-sparing benefits and similar cancer control…

Robot-assisted surgery for prostate cancer controls the disease for 10 years — ScienceDaily

The study also suggested that traditional methods of measuring the severity and possible spread of the cancer together with molecular techniques might, with further research, help to create personalized, cost-effective treatment regimens for prostate cancer patients who undergo the surgical procedure. The findings apply to men whose cancer has not spread beyond the prostate, and the results are comparable to the well-established and more invasive open surgery to remove the entire diseased prostate and some surrounding tissue. The research study is published this month online in European Urology, the official journal of the European Association of Urology. “Until our analysis, there was little available information on the long-term oncologic outcomes for patients who undergo robot-assisted radical prostatectomy, or RARP,” says Mireya Diaz, Ph.D., Director of Biostatistics at the Henry Ford’s Vattikuti Urology Institute (VUI) and lead author of the study…