It may never need treatment – but then again, it might. So why do some doctors want to sugar-coat it? “Don’t worry about Gleason 3+3=6 (Grade Group 1)! It’s harmless! We shouldn’t even call it cancer! In fact, let’s call it IDLE (indolent lesion of epithelial origin)!” Many patients have heard reassurances like these, and […]
Can intense hormonal suppression before surgery keep potentially aggressive prostate cancer from coming back? My goal in writing about prostate cancer is to offer reassurance and hope, and also a nudge or two when it’s time to take action. I have been very excited in past posts to write about the broader window of curability […]
Can’t get to a gym? No problem! You can do a lot with your own 30-second circuit stations at home! It can be intimidating to walk into a gym. There’s a fair amount of peacocking (at least at the YMCA in my hometown), and there’s always at least one guy lifting huge weights loudly, with […]
Driving Prostate Cancer “BATty” Part Two: How BAT Works Several years ago, medical oncologist Samuel Denmeade, M.D., Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Prostate Cancer Program, and colleagues came up with a remarkable concept for attacking prostate cancer: alternating ADT with high-dose testosterone. Recently, he took the time to explain to me how and why this […]
BAT: The Opposite of Conventional Wisdom Could the flat-out opposite of conventional wisdom prove to be effective against metastatic prostate cancer? Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been the bedrock of treatment for advanced prostate cancer for more than half a century. But investigators at Johns Hopkins are rethinking it – in a way that sounds […]
Prostate MRI’s ability to show what’s happening in the prostate is already transforming how prostate biopsies are done. Will it change treatment for prostate cancer, as well? Radiologist Peter Choyke, M.D., believes it will. He is Senior Investigator and Director of the National Cancer Institute’s Molecular Imaging Branch, and I recently interviewed him for the […]
Can MRI really make a difference in diagnosing prostate cancer? Just ask Rob Gray. It took nine years for his cancer to be diagnosed. He felt like a human pincushion after going through numerous tests, exams, and five prostate biopsies – some of them saturation biopsies (each involving 20 or more needle samples!). Doctors couldn’t […]