Long-term statin use protects against prostate cancer death
Statins and other drugs that lessen cardiovascular disease risk by lowering blood lipids rank among the world’s most prescribed medications. And for the men who take them, accumulating evidence has for years pointed to another added benefit: a lower risk of developing prostate cancer.
Now researchers are reporting that long-term statin use (more than 10 years) can also reduce the odds of a prostate cancer death. The new findings come from a study led by Alison Mondul, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Mondul says that most men develop slow-growing, indolent prostate cancers th...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 7, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Living With Prostate Cancer Prostate Knowledge HPK Source Type: blogs
Last Month in Oncology with Dr. Bishal Gyawali
By BISHAL GYAWALI MD
Long list of news in lung cancer
September was an important month in oncology—especially for lung cancer. The World Conference in Lung Cancer (WCLC) 2018 gave us some important practice-changing results, also leading to four NEJM publications. The trial with most public health impact is unfortunately not published yet. It’s the NELSON trial that randomised more than 15000 asymptomatic people at high risk of lung cancer to either CT-based screening for lung cancer or to no screening and found a significant reduction in lung cancer mortality rates among the screened cohort compared with the contr...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 4, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Research Bishal Gyawali Breast cancer Cancer drugs Clinical Trials health spending immunotherapy Lung cancer Oncology pembrolizumab Source Type: blogs
The Death of Cancer: Book Review and Reflections
By CHADI NABHAN MD, MBA, FACP
Some books draw you in based on a catchy title, a provocative book jacket, or familiarity with the author. For me, recollections of medical school primers written by the renowned lymphoma pioneer Vincent DeVita Jr. and my own path as an oncologist immediately attracted me to “The Death of Cancer.” I felt a connection to this book before even reading it and prepped myself for an optimistic message about how the cancer field is moving forward. Did I get what I bargained for?
Co-authored with his daughter, Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn, DeVita brings us back decades ago to when he had just st...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 1, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Care Books Physicians Book Review Chadi Nabhan Chemotherapy Oncology randomized controlled trials The Death of Cancer Vincent DeVita Source Type: blogs
Diagnosed with prostate cancer? You must ask these 10 questions.
Prostate cancer often presents unique challenges to patients and physicians alike. It can be indolent and non-aggressive — or life-threatening and everything in between. Unlike most cancers that have a dedicated roadmap for treatment for prostate cancer revolves around opinions and biases. To help patients navigate the landmine of prostate cancer, I’ve compiled a list […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 20, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/naeem-rahman" rel="tag" > Naeem Rahman, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions Oncology/Hematology Urology Source Type: blogs
Last Month in Oncology with Dr. Bishal Gyawali: November 2018
By BISHAL GYAWALI MD
Keynote speech
There was a very sobering piece in NEJM by the FDA last month in which the authors try to explore what went wrong with the Keynote-183, Keynote-185 and checkmate 602 trials testing PD-1 inhibitors combinations with pomalidomide or lenalidomide and dexamethasone in multiple myeloma. Interim analysis of Keynote 183 and 185 revealed detrimental effects on overall survival (OS) with hazard ratios of 1.61 and 2.06, not explained by differences in toxicities alone. The checkmate 602 trial was also halted in light of these findings and also showed higher mortality in the nivolumab combina...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 17, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Pharmaceuticals Physicians Bishal Gyawali Cancer drugs cancer immunotherapy Clinical Trials FDA Oncology PD-1 inhibitors Source Type: blogs
Smoking tied to more aggressive prostate cancer
If you’re a smoker looking for another reason to quit, consider this: in addition to raising your risk of heart and lung disease, as well as cancers of the bladder and kidney, smoking could boost the odds that you will develop aggressive prostate cancer that metastasizes, or spreads through your body. That’s according to research published by an Austrian team in 2018.
The evidence connecting tobacco use with prostate cancer (which tends to grow relatively slowly) isn’t as strong as it is for other smoking-related diseases. Researchers first detected the link only after pooling data from 51 studies that enrolled over ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 26, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Prostate Knowledge Risks and Prevention HPK Source Type: blogs
I Got My Whole Genome Sequenced. Here ’s What I Learned.
Dante Labs sent me their Full DNA whole genome sequencing package, and I went through a roller-coaster of feelings: I was excited to know every secret of my cells, but I was afraid to get to know my hereditary cancer risks and worried what I might find. As in my case, (scientific) curiosity usually overrides fear, I jumped into the unknown and I’m eager to share my results here.
Whole genome sequencing is available to anyone. So what?
The human genome is the blueprint for building a person. When the Human Genome Project was completed in 2006, and the DNA double spiral uncovered its secrets for the very first time, scient...
Source: The Medical Futurist - November 20, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Biotechnology Genomics Medical Professionals Patients Personalized Medicine Policy Makers Dante Labs data DNA future genetic genome sequencing genomic data genomic testing Health health risks health science Healthcare I Source Type: blogs
PSA-based screening for prostate cancer: Interpreting the changing guidelines
Comparing the 2018 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation statement on prostate cancer screening in the October 15th issue of American Family Physician with its previous recommendation, the first question family physicians ought to ask is: What new evidence compelled the USPSTF to move from recommending against PSA screening in all men to determining that there was a small net […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 8, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/kenneth-lin" rel="tag" > Kenneth Lin, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Oncology/Hematology Primary Care Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 5th 2018
In conclusion, weight cycling significantly increased life-span relative to remaining with obesity and had a similar benefit to sustained modest weight loss.
Support for Oxidized Cholesterol as a Primary Cause of Atherosclerosis
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2018/11/support-for-oxidized-cholesterol-as-a-primary-cause-of-atherosclerosis/
In the paper I'll point out today, the authors provide evidence in support of the concept that it is specifically oxidized cholesterol that is the primary cause of atherosclerosis rather than the condition resulting from too much cholesterol in general. In atherosc...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 4, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Recent Research into the Interaction of Exercise and Aging
Today's open access papers touch on aspects of the interaction between exercise and the pace of aging. People age at somewhat different rates, and for the vast majority of us lifestyle is a far greater determinant of that rate than our genes. Until such time as the clinical deployment of rejuvenation therapies is well underway, and in regions of the world sufficiently wealthy to have tamed the majority of infectious disease, it remains the case that our choices regarding our health, such as calorie restriction and exercise, are the most reliable means of improving life expectancy. The size of the effect is not enormous in ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 2, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
23andMe ’s Pharmacogenetic Test Approved by FDA
The FDA has just approved 23andMe’s Personal Genomic Service (PGS) Pharmacogenetic Reports. This marks the first direct-to-consumer test for pharmacogenetics of enzyme variants that may affect the way patients break down medications. Consumers collect their saliva into 23andMe’s testing kit, mail it to the company’s labs, and then receive the results via an online portal. The approved pharmacogenetic assessment system looks for 33 variants of common enzymes that affect medication metabolism, including CYP2C19, CYP2C9, CYP3A5, UGT1A1, DPYD, TPMT, SLCO1B1, and CYP2D6. The full list of variants can be found ...
Source: Medgadget - November 1, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Ben Ouyang Tags: Diagnostics Genetics News Source Type: blogs
Investigators unveil metastatic prostate cancer ’s genomic landscape
Localized prostate cancer that is diagnosed before it has a chance to spread typically responds well to surgery or radiation. But when a tumor metastasizes and sends malignant cells elsewhere in the body, the prognosis worsens. Better treatments for men with metastatic prostate cancer are urgently needed. In 2018, scientists advanced toward that goal by sequencing the entire metastatic cancer genome.
The newly revealed genomic landscape includes not just the active genes that make proteins, but also the vast stretches of DNA in between them that can also be functionally significant. Most of the genomic alterations were str...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 29, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Living With Prostate Cancer Prostate Knowledge HPK Source Type: blogs
Microfluidic Chips to Diagnose and Characterize Cancer: Interview with Prof. Fatih Sarioglu, Georgia Tech
Research into microfluidic devices to aid in cancer diagnosis promises huge leaps in making diagnostics easier and faster. Much of this research is focused on chips that can trap circulating tumor cells (CTCs) which are present in blood samples. CTCs are released from a primary tumor and can form metastases in other sites in the body, a process which is responsible for more than 90% of cancer-related deaths.
Being able to easily detect and assess CTCs in the blood would provide clinicians with the ability to minimally-invasively diagnose cancer and provide researchers with a window on cancer metastasis and progression. At ...
Source: Medgadget - October 24, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Exclusive Oncology Source Type: blogs
Prostate cancer screening campaigns are giving men the finger
Fifty years ago, in a golden moment of television comedy shows, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In program regularly featured “The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate” award. Wikipedia says it “recognized actual dubious achievements by public individuals or institutions.” Do a Google search. You’ll quickly see how popular this award became.
Yes, I’m dating myself by going back 50 years. But mine is the generation that often becomes obsessed with being given “the finger” by doctors for digital rectal exams (DRE) looking for prostate cancer.
And it is in that context that we propose to revive The Flying Fickle Fi...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 22, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/gary-schwitzer" rel="tag" > Gary Schwitzer < /a > Tags: Conditions Mainstream media Oncology/Hematology Source Type: blogs
A new option for immunotherapy in metastatic prostate cancer
Dividing cells face daunting challenges when replicating the billions of letters of DNA in their genomes. For instance, DNA letters in new cells can get mixed up, and then the affected genes don’t function correctly. To fix that problem, healthy cells can deploy so-called mismatch repair (MMR) genes that put scrambled DNA letters back in the correct order. But when those genes are themselves defective, then this repair system breaks down. And as a result, cells develop a progressive condition called microsatellite instability that leaves them vulnerable to cancer.
Those sorts of defects are shared by many different tumor...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 21, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
