Prostate cancer

News • External and brachytherapy

Prostate cancer: Combination of radiation therapies key to success

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers diagnosed nationally among men. The National Cancer Institute estimates 161,000 were diagnosed in 2017. While there are many treatment options for men with prostate cancer, a recent national study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared the effectiveness of treatments for high-risk prostate cancer. Said Daniel Krauss,…

News • Radiation therapy

New gel reduces side effects of prostate cancer treatment

Radiation therapy is a popular and effective treatment for many men with prostate cancer, and now a temporary gel offers greater protection for organs at risk during treatments. “Treating prostate cancer with radiation therapy can cause unintended injury to adjacent, healthy tissue, which can lead to bowel and urinary problems, as well as erectile dysfunction,” said Daniel Krauss, M.D., a…

News • PSA screening

New prostate cancer risk score could help guide screening decisions

A new score for predicting a man’s genetic risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer could help guide decisions about who to screen and when, say researchers in The BMJ today. Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in males in developed countries, with over a million new cases and over 300,000 associated deaths estimated worldwide in 2012. Screening for prostate specific…

Article • Recognition in new recommendations

MRI’s role in prostate cancer diagnosis

Lars Schimmöller MD, associate professor of radiology at Düsseldorf University Hospital, tackled current diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa) and addressed tumour detection, staging, active surveillance and recurrence during the Medica Academy session on Imaging Update. He also highlighted how MRI helps improve biopsies and avoid unnecessary surgery in PCa.

News • Research project

Can new molecular imaging technology guide prostate cancer surgery?

The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) announced that it has received funding from the Dutch Cancer Society to test whether a novel molecular imaging technology can guide prostate cancer surgery. The project will evaluate the imaging technology’s ability to detect prostate cancer during surgery, with the aim of performing more accurate removal of cancerous tissue. Prostate cancer is the most…

News • Metastasis

Prostate cancer cells become ‘shapeshifters’ to spread to distant organs

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists report they have discovered a biochemical process that gives prostate cancer cells the almost unnatural ability to change their shape, squeeze into other organs and take root in other parts of the body.

Surgery for early prostate cancer often harmful

A major 20-year study provides further evidence that prostate cancer surgery offers negligible benefits to many men with early-stage disease. In such men, who account for most cases of newly diagnosed prostate cancer, surgery did not prolong life and often caused serious complications such as infection, urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

News • Study

Single high-dose radiation especially effective against prostate tumours

Doctors have found that treating prostate cancer with a single, high dose of radiation delivered precisely to the site of the tumour results in good quality of life and fewer trips to the hospital, with adverse side effects that are no worse than if the radiation treatment had been given in several lower doses.

Article • Prostate Cancer

Proteomic mass spectrometry

Scientists at a UK university are using the power of mass spectrometry to research critical processes in human prostate cancer.

News • Prostate Cancer

Predicting and Preventing Prostate Cancer Spread

University of Adelaide researchers have uncovered a new pathway which regulates the spread of prostate cancer around the body.

News • Positron emission tomography

New imaging method detects prostate cancer

An international group of researchers report success in mice of a method of using positron emission tomography (PET) scans to track, in real time, an antibody targeting a hormone receptor pathway specifically involved in prostate cancer.

News • Prostate Cancer

Fusion targeted biopsy proves more accurate in diagnosis

New research confirms that an innovative procedure combining MRI and ultrasound to create a 3D image of the prostate can more accurately locate suspicious areas and help diagnose whether it’s prostate cancer.

News • Prostate Cancer

Combined radical treatment and examination can halve mortality

Men with very high-risk prostate cancer, who are treated at hospitals with a high proportion of administered radical local treatment (radiotherapy or prostatectomy), only have half of the mortality risk of men who are treated at hospitals with the lowest proportion. This is according to a new study conducted by researchers at Umeå University in Sweden.

News • Photoacoustic imaging

Promising option for noninvasive monitoring of prostate cancer

While active surveillance is often recommended for patients with nonaggressive prostate cancer to reduce unnecessary treatment, the challenge for clinicians is to monitor and distinguish early-stage tumors from advanced cancers. A team of scientists led by researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute have demonstrated that photoacoustic imaging (PAI) may be an effective tool for more accurately…

News • Study

Prostate cancer: Laser ablation becomes viable treatment

Prostate cancer patients may soon have a new option to treat their disease: laser heat. UCLA researchers have found that focal laser ablation – the precise application of heat via laser to a tumor – is both feasible and safe in men with intermediate risk prostate cancer.

News • Medication

Molecules most capable of fighting prostate cancer

Scientists from MIPT (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology), MSU (Moscow State University), and National University of Science and Technology "MISIS" provided an overview of the most promising compounds which can be used as medications for prostate cancer. The article was published in the Journal of Drug Targeting.

News • Electronic nose

Device that can 'smell' prostate cancer

A research team from the University of Liverpool has reached an important milestone towards creating a urine diagnostic test for prostate cancer that could mean that invasive diagnostic procedures that men currently undergo eventually become a thing of the past.

News • Cancer trial

Suicide gene therapy kills prostate tumor cells

Results from a long-term clinical trial conducted by cancer researchers at Houston Methodist Hospital show that combining radiation treatment with "suicide gene therapy," a technique in which prostate cancer cells are genetically modified so they signal a patient's immune system to attack them, provides a safe and effective one-two punch against the disease.

Article • Multi-parametric MRI

Prostate MRI: “Yes, we scan!”

One in six men will develop prostate cancer. It is the second leading cause of cancer death amongst men in both the US and the EU. Definite diagnosis at an early stage is vital for survival and early treatment minimizes the risk of adverse effects, such as incontinence, erectile dysfunction, or impotence. While there is no preventive screening there is a ray of hope. Prof. Jelle Barentsz,…

Article • Prostate radiological

‘We need more feedback’

What you see is what you get - unfortunately, this doesn’t always apply in cancer imaging. Why is it that something which looks conspicuous on an image later turns out not to be a tumour? Why, on the other hand, are things overlooked that later turn out to be cancer? Pathological findings are extremely important to help improve diagnostic precision in radiology. Both disciplines therefore…

Article • Prostate pathological

A pathologist’s view of prostate diagnostics

Pathology is the gold standard of prostate diagnostics. Whilst the radiologist makes interpretations based on shadows and grey scale values visible on an image, the pathologist has the ‘fait accompli’ under the microscope. Professor Glen Kristiansen, Director at the Institute for Pathology at the University Hospital Bonn, explains why image-guided biopsies also make sense from the…

MRI - prostate cancer screening for the future?

A screening method that combines a traditional PSA test with an MRI detects a significantly greater number of prostate cancer cases and improves diagnostic accuracy. The study was conducted as part of the largest international research project on prostate cancer. The method will now be tried with 40,000 subjects in Gothenburg.

Article • Radiotherapy

Prostate: Free of cancer after five years

Results from a randomised controlled trial to compare the use of permanent radioactive implants (brachytherapy) with dose-escalated external beam radiotherapy in patients with prostate cancer show that the men who received brachytherapy were twice as likely to be cancer-free five years later. These results presented Professor James Morris, from the Department of Radiation Oncology, Vancouver…

Radiologists look at Vienna

Spring can be felt, though many visitors of ECR 2015 probably only have time to enjoy the floral decorations in the conference center. The program of the conference is packed full of topics that promise exciting days and many discussions.

The issue is not over-diagnosis but over-treatment

'We desperately need a ‘no treatment’ trial for DCIS', says Clive Wells, Chairman of the European Working Group on Breast Cancer Pathology, and London Regional Co-ordinator for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) National Breast Cancer Screening Programme. Interview: Frank Swain