Prostate Cancer: January 2007 Archives

URBANA - A new University of Illinois study shows that tomatoes and broccoli--two vegetables known for their cancer-fighting qualities--are better at shrinking prostate tumors when both are part of the daily diet than when they're eaten alone.

"When tomatoes and broccoli are eaten together, we see an additive effect. We think it's because different bioactive compounds in each food work on different anti-cancer pathways," said University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor John Erdman.

In a study published in the January 15 issue of Cancer Research, Erdman and doctoral candidate Kirstie Canene-Adams fed a diet containing 10 percent tomato powder and 10 percent broccoli powder to laboratory rats that had been implanted with prostate cancer cells. The powders were made from whole foods so the effects of eating the entire vegetable could be compared with consuming individual parts of them as a nutritional supplement.

Men who receive combination treatment with hormone therapy plus radiation for local or locally advanced prostate cancer may experience a significant reduction in penile length, according to a report in the January issue of the Journal of Urology.

There has been anecdotal evidence that radiation therapy can reduce penile length but, to the authors' knowledge, the present study is the first to determine if penile length changes following combination treatment with hormone therapy plus radiation.

Dr. Ahmet Haliloglu and colleagues at the University of Ankara in Turkey enrolled 47 men with local or locally advanced prostate cancer. The patients, who were followed from 2000 to 2005, received leuprolide or goserelin injections every 3 months, for a total of three doses. At month 7, radiotherapy, using a 70-Gy dose, was initiated and continued for 7 weeks.

Radioactive 'Seeds' and Conventional Radiation Treatment Are Effective

By Salynn Boyles, WebMD Medical News

Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD

One of the longest ever follow-up studies of radioactive "seed" implants for prostate cancer shows the treatment to be highly effective in combination with conventional external radiation.

Three out of four patients in the study remained disease free at least 15 years after treatment ended, with intermediate-risk patients faring almost as well as those considered to have a low risk of dying from their cancer. The outcomes compared favorably to the best results reported among surgically treated patients, says John E. Sylvester, MD, of the Seattle Prostate Institute.

The collaborative work being performed by professionals across medical disciplines in the promising area of molecular imaging - from research scientists to nuclear medicine physicians, urologists, radiochemists and even veterinarians - provides encouraging news in fighting prostate cancer. This type of progressive - or translational - research can be seen in two papers published in the January issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and at Nihon Medi-Physics’ research center in Chiba, Japan, collaborated closely in examining the potential of using the radiotracer FACBC to better stage or determine prostate cancer spread, said David M. Schuster, an assistant professor and director of the division of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging in Emory’s radiology department.

Seventy-four percent of men treated with a combination of radiation seed implants and external beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer are cured of their disease 15 years following their treatment, according to a study released in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology-Biology-Physics, the official journal of ASTRO.

This study was conducted by the physicians at the Seattle Prostate Institute. Doctors wanted to look at the combination of seed implants and external beam radiation therapy, two different types of radiation therapy, to prolong the long-term disease cure rates for prostate cancer. Over the course of 15 years, doctors followed 232 men with early-stage prostate cancer who received a course of external beam radiation therapy followed by permanent seed implants a few weeks later. Sixty-five percent of these patients had T2b-T3 disease and the entire group had an average pre-treatment PSA of 15 ng/ml.

Cancer treatment in Scotland appears to favour women over men, who face longer waits and delays in treatment, a leading doctor has warned.

Figures on cancer waiting times show that 88.2 per cent of breast-cancer patients are starting treatment within the two-month target from urgent referral by their doctor. But waiting-time for targets in urological cancers, including prostate and testicular cancers, hit only 67.5 per cent.

Dr David Love, joint chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, said men might be the unintended victims of high-profile campaigns which have lobbied successfully to improve breast-cancer care.

The gender "bias" is most marked in the Borders. Up to 100 per cent of breast-cancer patients start treatment within two months, but for urological cancers, achievement of the target falls to a low of 54.5 per cent.