Improved Accuracy Of IMRT Delivery In Post-Prostatectomy Patients
10/07/2011
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the United States, as well as the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in this population. Many of these patients undergo surgical removal of their prostate, followed by radiation therapy applied to their prostate bed - the space where the prostate was once situated...
Predicting Prognosis Of Patients With Inoperable NSCLC Using FDG-PET
10/07/2011
The prognosis for patients with stage II and III inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is poor, with only about 15 percent of patients surviving at five years post-treatment for the disease. While new treatment strategies are being intensely studied, timely assessment of their efficacy has proven difficult...
A large study of the daughters of women who had been given DES, the first synthetic form of estrogen, during pregnancy has found that exposure to the drug while in the womb (in utero) is associated with many reproductive problems and an increased risk of certain cancers and pre-cancerous conditions...
Potential New Therapeutic Target For Breast Cancer
10/07/2011
A possible new target for breast cancer therapy comes from the discovery that the Tyk2 protein helps suppress the growth and metastasis of breast tumors, as reported in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online for the next week*...
Cialis (Tadalafil) Approved For Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Treatment, USA
10/07/2011
Tadalafil (Cialis) has been approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for the treatment of BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia) signs and symptoms - a condition in which the prostate gland enlarges. It has also been approved for the treatment of simultaneous BPH and ED (erectile dysfunction). Since 2003, the medication has been on the market legally in the USA for ED treatment...
Men With A Family History Of Prostate Cancer Do Not Need More Aggressive Treatment
10/07/2011
Approximately 10-20 percent of prostate cancer patients have a family history of the disease. There are three major factors that are used to evaluate the extent and aggressiveness of prostate cancer, help make treatment decisions, and estimate prognosis: the Prostate Specific Antigen Level (PSA), Gleason score (GS) from the biopsy, and the digital rectal exam findings (DRE)...
Gleason Scores At Fox Chase Better Predict Prostate Cancer's Recurrence After Radiation
10/07/2011
In a new study led by Fox Chase Cancer Center radiation oncologist Natasha Townsend, M.D., researchers have found that Gleason scores determined by pathologists at Fox Chase Cancer Center more accurately predict the risk of recurrence than Gleason scores from referring institutions. She presented the new research at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology...
After a prostate cancer patient receives radiation treatment, his doctor carefully monitors the amount of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, in his blood. An increase in PSA, called biochemical failure, is the first detectable sign of the cancer's return to the prostate...
Lung Fibrosis Progression Blocked In Mouse Model
10/07/2011
A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a way to prevent the progression, or induce the regression, of lung injury that results from use of the anti-cancer chemotherapy drug Bleomycin. Pulmonary fibrosis caused by this drug, as well as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) from unknown causes, affect nearly five million people worldwide...
The Success Of Certain Cancer Therapies Can Be Predicted By Novel Stanford Math Formula
10/07/2011
Carefully tracking the rate of response of human lung tumors during the first weeks of treatment can predict which cancers will undergo sustained regression, suggests a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine...