Penny Allen

Atlanta-A trial of drug regimens in hormone-refractory prostate cancer came up with only modest results, but it did take an important first step: It is one of the first prospective trials conducted in taxane-refractory disease.

Atlanta-Are nanobacteria involved in prostate disease? That question hasn't been settled, but evidence of these controversial organisms has been found in the prostates and serum of men with prostatic inflammation.

Atlanta-Because prostatitis in African-American men is not well studied, University of Michigan researchers examined the prevalence and risk factors in African-American men in Genessee County, MI, with a surprising result. On the whole, the risk factors matched those reported for Caucasian populations, but men who were physically active had significantly decreased odds of having prostatitis in a study presented at the AUA annual meeting.

San Francisco--Just because it looks like interstitial cystitis doesn't mean it is interstitial cystitis. Some irritative voiding symptoms that look like IC may be symptoms of bladder cancer, even in patients who do not have the usual bladder cancer risk factors.

The 2004 AUA annual meeting brought news of the most dramatic advance in the field of interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome over the last 20 years. Researchers reported the complete molecular structure of antiproliferative factor (APF), the peptide produced by bladder epithelial cells only in IC patients.

San Francisco--The discovery of the peptide made only by interstitial cystitis in a patient's bladder epithelium has held out the possibility of a diagnostic test, but it wasn't until University of Maryland researchers recently identified the peptide's exact structure that such a test was feasible. The latest research on antiproliferative factor (APF) not only moves researchers a step closer to a commercial diagnostic test for IC but also to new possibilities for treatment of both IC and bladder cancer and to intriguing questions about a new family of proteins.