No, this is not a body dismembering device

Want to see a high-pressure sales pitch? Don’t visit a car dealer… just visit a hospital with a prostate-chopping robot.

It slices… it dices… it brings in money like nobody’s business — and who cares if it performs operations no one actually needs?

A new study shows how hospitals that spend big on robots do more surgeries than ever before — so many that they must be putting those machines to work overtime.

Good thing robots don’t have unions!

Researchers tracked robot purchases at 554 hospitals and treatments given to 30,000 men between 2001 and 2005, and found that hospitals that buy the machines do 29 more surgeries in the first year alone — a huge jump when you consider that many only did between 100 and 150 a year in the first place.

Meanwhile, hospitals that don’t buy robots actually do five fewer surgeries in that same year.

It’s not because they’re losing business to robots — surgeries were actually DOWN overall during the study period, according to the research in Medical Care.

It’s because hospitals are pushing robo-surgery on any man with prostate cancer — and you don’t even have to walk through the door to hear the sales pitch.

In addition to the millions spent on the machines, hospitals with robots spend big on marketing campaigns that rival those of the car dealers I mentioned earlier: blaring radio ads and obnoxious TV adverts.

Some hospitals even bring their robots to shopping malls for passers-by to “oooh” and “aaaah” over.

But here’s what you won’t hear during that marketing blitz: There is zero evidence — and I mean absolutely no evidence at all — that men who are treated with robots have better outcomes.

And there’s plenty of evidence that prostate surgeries — done by humans and robots alike — can lead to a nightmare battle with lasting and even permanent side effects, including incontinence and impotence.

It’s the same story with most other cancer treatments, prostate and otherwise — we treat more cancer “survivors” than ever before… but haven’t changed the survival rate.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Red Wine Protects The Prostate,

Research Suggests

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2007) — Researchers have found that men who drink an average of four to seven glasses of red wine per week are only 52% as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as those who do not drink red wine, reports the June 2007 issue of Harvard Men’s Health Watch. In addition, red wine appears particularly protective against advanced or aggressive cancers.

Researchers in Seattle collected information about many factors that might influence the risk of prostate cancer in men between ages 40 and 64, including alcohol consumption. At first the results for alcohol consumption seemed similar to the findings of many earlier studies: There was no relationship between overall consumption and risk.

But the scientists went one step further by evaluating each type of alcoholic beverage independently. Here the news was surprising—wine drinking was linked to a reduced risk of prostate cancer. And when white wine was compared with red, red had the most benefit. Even low amounts seemed to help, and for every additional glass of red wine per week, the relative risk declined by 6%.

Why red wine? Doctors don’t know. But much of the speculation focuses on chemicals—including various flavonoids and resveratrol—missing from other alcoholic beverages. These components have antioxidant properties, and some appear to counterbalance androgens, the male hormones that stimulate the prostate.

Many doctors are reluctant to recommend drinking alcohol for health, fearing that their patients might assume that if a little alcohol is good, a lot might be better. The Harvard Men’s Health Watch notes that men who enjoy alcohol and can drink in moderation and responsibly may benefit from a lower risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cardiac death.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Increases Risk Of High-Grade

Prostate Cancer;

Makes Preventive Drug Ineffective

Science (July 14, 2009) — Current research is inconclusive regarding the relationship between alcohol consumption and prostate cancer risk. Researchers led by Zhihong Gong Ph.D. of the University of California San Francisco, examined the associations of total alcohol, type of alcoholic beverage, and drinking pattern with risks of total, low- and high-grade prostate cancer.

They used data from more than 10,000 men participating in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT). They found participants who reported heavy alcohol consumption (?50 g alcohol/day) and regular heavy drinking (?4 drinks/day on ?5 days per week) were twice as likely or more to be diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer (RR: 2.01, and 2.17, respectively). Less heavy drinking was not associated with risk.

They also compared drinking patterns with treatment outcome among men enrolled on this placebo-controlled trial of the drug finasteride. They found finasteride’s ability to lower prostate cancer risk was blocked in men drinking <50g alcohol per day.

They conclude heavy, daily drinking increases the risk of high-grade prostate cancer and that heavy drinking made finasteride ineffective for reducing prostate cancer risk.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

With Reduced Risk of Advanced

Prostate Cancer

ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2009) — While it is too early for physicians to start advising their male patients to take up the habit of regular coffee drinking, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

“Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in prostate cancer. It was plausible that there may be an association between coffee and prostate cancer,” said Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

In a prospective investigation, Wilson and colleagues found that men who drank the most coffee had a 60 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any coffee. This is the first study of its kind to look at both overall risk of prostate cancer and risk of localized, advanced and lethal disease.

“Few studies have looked prospectively at this association, and none have looked at coffee and specific prostate cancer outcomes,” said Wilson. “We specifically looked at different types of prostate cancer, such as advanced vs. localized cancers or high-grade vs. low-grade cancers.”

Caffeine is actually not the key factor in this association, according to Wilson. The researchers are unsure which components of the beverage are most important, as coffee contains many biologically active compounds like antioxidants and minerals.

Using the Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study, the researchers documented the regular and decaffeinated coffee intake of nearly 50,000 men every four years from 1986 to 2006; 4,975 of these men developed prostate cancer over that time. They also examined the cross-sectional association between coffee consumption and levels of circulating hormones in blood samples collected from a subset of men in the cohort.

“Very few lifestyle factors have been consistently associated with prostate cancer risk, especially with risk of aggressive disease, so it would be very exciting if this association is confirmed in other studies,” said Wilson. “Our results do suggest there is no reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate cancer.”

This association might also help understand the biology of prostate cancer and possible chemoprevention measures.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

CHICAGO (UPI) — U.S. researchers say they’ve discovered a therapy that might be able to preserve erectile function following prostate cancer surgery.

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine scientists say up to 80 percent of men undergoing the procedure will lose the ability to have an erection because of damage to a critical nerve that runs along the prostate. But the new study suggests the damaged nerve can be regenerated more quickly with a protein called sonic hedgehog, delivered via a nanofiber gel.

The study, conducted with rats, showed the protein regenerated the damaged nerve twice as quickly as it would have regenerated on its own, the researchers said, noting speeding the nerve healing is essential in order to prevent cell death in the penis and to preserve erectile function.

“This discovery about sonic hedgehog could be applicable not only to erectile dysfunction after prostate surgery, but also when the cavernous nerve is damaged by diabetes, which also causes erectile dysfunction,” said Assistant Professor Carol Podlasek, who led the study. She said the finding might also apply to damaged sciatic or facial nerves.

The name sonic hedgehog is taken from a popular video game. The protein is a vital building block in the body that promotes nerve regeneration,

The findings were presented recently in San Francisco during the annual meeting of the American Urological Association.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha

WASHINGTON (UPI) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced approval Thursday of a new therapy for certain men suffering advanced prostate cancer.

The FDA said the drug, Provenge (sipuleucel-T), allows patients to use their own immune system to fight the disease. The drug is indicated for the treatment of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body and is resistant to standard hormone treatment.

“The availability of Provenge provides a new treatment option for men with advanced prostate cancer, who currently have limited effective therapies available,” said Dr. Karen Midthun, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Provenge is an autologous cellular immunotherapy, designed to stimulate a patient’s own immune system to respond against the cancer. Each dose of Provenge is manufactured by obtaining a patient’s immune cells from the blood, the FDA said. The immune cells are then exposed to a protein that is found in most prostate cancers, linked to an immune stimulating substance. After that process, the patient’s own cells are returned to the patient to treat the prostate cancer.

Provenge, administered intravenously in a three-dose schedule given at about two-week intervals, is manufactured by the Dendreon Corp. in Seattle.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 8th June 2010

CHICAGO (UPI) — Two studies say brachytherapy — radiation seed implants — is a superior treatment for early-stage prostate cancer, officials at a Chicago non-profit say.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Chicago and The Taussig Cancer Center at Cleveland Clinic say two independent studies show brachytherapy produces a superior disease-free survival rate among patients with early-stage prostate cancer.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Chicago analyzed 9,137 patients who were treated for prostate cancer with brachytherapy between 1997 and 2008 at Chicago Prostate Center. The study says 67.5 percent of the patients were regarded as low risk, 29.36 percent as intermediate and 1.01 percent as high. For those patients, overall cure rates were 96 percent, 84 percent and 75 percent for low-, intermediate- and high-risk patients, respectively.

When combined with external beam radiation therapy in intermediate- and high-risk patients, the brachytherapy results far exceed those of surgery, the study says.

Researchers at the Taussig Cancer Center at Cleveland Clinic say for low-risk prostate cancer patients, brachytherapy was equally successful as external beam radiation, but more successful than a radical prostatectomy – prostate removal.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 8th Sept 2009