Prostate size is an additional factor besides Gleason score, PSA, and the percentage of core biopsies involved with cancer, that needs to be considered when going through the treatment selection process.

Since prostate cancer is predominantly a slow growing and asymptomatic disease, emergencies directly caused by prostate cancer are relatively rare. But there are a few conditions that can arise and it is good to be aware of them. Dr. Scholz highlights a few of these emergency conditions.

AUA is an annual meeting of urologists where data from new studies are presented. This data is presented in abstracts, or summaries of the entire peer reviewed articles. In this article, Mark Scholz, MD, analyzes the data and explains the practical implications of these new studies.

All this not withstanding, in my mind there is no doubt that Testosterone Inactivating Pharmaceuticals (TIP), when appropriate and applied in a timely manner, acts effectively to control prostate cancer.

The surprising finding, after 12 years, was that there was no difference in survival between surgery and watchful waiting in the Low-Risk or in the Intermediate-Risk group.  On the other hand, men who were in the High-Risk category did benefit with improved 12-year survival when treated with immediate surgery compared to the men with High-Risk disease who did watchful waiting. 

Using the immune system to fight cancer is a rapidly advancing area of research. The immune system (as it relates to fighting cancer) is made up of three components: 1) regulatory cells (TRegs), 2) killer cells, and 3) detector cells otherwise known as dendritic cells.  Dendritic cells activate the killer cells and help them “home in” on the cancer.