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Being diagnosed with prostate cancer may raise men's risk of having a heart attack or stroke, especially in the first week after diagnosis. Researchers found an increased risk of about 30 percent during the year after prostate cancer diagnosis. The risk of suicide during this time also increased, although this was much less common than heart problems.
What do we know already?
The numbers of men being diagnosed with prostate cancer are increasing, especially now that a blood test (called prostate-specific antigen, or PSA) that can help detect potential prostate cancer is more widely used. This may mean that more men are diagnosed early, and some may have a better chance of being treated and surviving their cancer.
However, we're not sure that all men with prostate cancer benefit from treatment. The research isn't clear. Part of the trouble is that many prostate cancers grow very slowly, and might never have caused any trouble if they'd not been picked up. Others grow much more quickly. It's hard to tell which cancers are likely to need treatment, and which are best left alone.
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Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. ( TEVA) headquartered in Israel and OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OGXI) announced on Dec 21 that they have entered a licensing agreement under which both companies will further develop and commercialize OGX-011, an anticancer drug that may be enlisted to treat advanced prostate cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer, and Teva will purchase shares in OncoGenex.
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The prostate, an androgen-regulated exocrine gland, is an integral part of the male reproductive system which has an essential function in sperm survival and motility in its long hostile route to meet and fertilise the egg in the Fallopian tube.
Testosterone is known to be the key, obligatory regulator of the prostate that promotes the development and progression of prostate cancer (PCa). Yet, the pathophysiological mechanism of PCa remains unclear and its causal relation to serum testosterone has not been established. Here, we report on the discovery of a previously unrecognized route of flow of free testosterone (FT), at a concentration of 130 times the physiological levels, reaching the prostate via the testicular and prostate venous drainage systems, bypassing the systemic circulation.
This condition results from the malfunction of the vertically oriented testicular venous drainage system in humans, a phenomenon with a prevalence that increases rapidly with age, which causes deviation of the testicular venous flow from its normal route. Early results of an interventional radiological procedure, super-selective intraprostatic androgen deprivation therapy are discussed.
This treatment has resulted in decrease in prostate volume, and serum PSA, with disappearance of cancerous cells on repeat biopsies in five of six patients. Some of the unresolved biological enigmatic questions associated with PCa are discussed.
We conclude that pathological flow of FT from the testes directly to the prostate in an extremely high concentration via the testicular-prostate venous drainage systems was identified may explain the mechanism for the development of PCa. We suggest a time-window for eradication of localised, androgen-sensitive, PCa cells. We anticipate that this treatment may retard, stop or even reverse the development of the disease. A mechanism for the evolution of PCa is discussed.
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Women at higher risk for breast cancer -- such as those with a mother, sister or daughter having had breast cancer, or who began menstruating before 12, or haven't borne children until age 30 (or not at all) or who have had previous breast abnormalities -- should consider getting screened in their 40s.
Recommendations for cancer screening are under review
