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Paris--External irradiation immediately following radical prostatectomy appears to improve biochemical progression-free survival and local control in prostate cancer patients at high risk of progression, according to results of a study from the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).

Paris--Results of a second phase III trial suggest that a still-investigational immunotherapy agent offers a survival benefit in men with asymptomatic metastatic androgen-independent prostate cancer. Survival data from the more recent study support the findings of the first phase III trial of the agent, APC8015, also known as sipuleucel-T (Provenge), researchers reported at the European Cancer Conference here.

New York--Differential diagnosis of erectile dysfunction doesn't appear worth the effort when selecting a drug for treatment: No meaningful difference in the effect of the three available phosphodiesterase type-5 inhibitors was seen among men in a clinical trial, regardless of the cause of their ED, according to Hartmut Porst, MD.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--Researchers performing removal of challenging renal tumors using laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) in 300 consecutive cases have found that, compared with the first 100 cases, blood loss and overall complications decreased despite increased complexity of treating surgically difficult small renal tumors.

Paris--Adding a form of high-dose calcitriol to docetaxel (Taxotere) offers improved survival over docetaxel alone in men with metastatic androgen-independent prostate cancer, according to results of a multicenter trial presented at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO-13) here. Further, the addition of the calcitriol formulation, known as DN-101, to the chemotherapy agent produced an unanticipated advantage in a reduced number of serious gastrointestinal and thromboembolic adverse events.

Philadelphia--Enhancing renal masses are all presumed to be renal cell carcinoma until proven otherwise. While surgery remains the gold standard, those that are watched instead of excised carry a relatively low risk of metastasis. Unfortunately, size on presentation cannot tell clinicians about their true growth potential. Because not all enhancing renal masses are RCC, those that are, in fact, carcinomas grow faster than the masses left in place. Those are the conclusions of two different studies on the natural history of renal masses, one, a meta-analysis of the world literature and the other, an analysis of one center's experience.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--Participants in an AUA-sponsored laparoscopic videotape mentoring course, offered as part of a skills-based learning course, report an increase in their laparoscopic caseload and in the performance of clinical laparoscopic suturing.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--A model-based training format and an interactive virtual reality simulator trainer that were developed to teach basic ureteroscopy skills showed no significant points of difference when compared in use by inexperienced medical students, reported researchers from the University of California, Irvine.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--Open radical prostatectomy remains the standard surgical approach for the management of localized prostate adenocarcinoma, but recent data show that this may be changing. As robot-assisted surgery becomes more prevalent in the urologic community, practice patterns appear to be shifting from open radical prostatectomy toward robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--The extent to which American patients comprehend the technology behind robot-assisted radical prostatectomy is surprisingly limited, according to a prospective questionnaire evaluation from St. Peter's Hospital, Albany, NY.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--An increased body mass index has been shown to confound the outcome of numerous surgical treatments. The effect of BMI on cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, cancer mortality, and blood loss during radical surgery is well documented. Less clear is the effect of BMI on laparoscopic surgery, including laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.

Amsterdam, Netherlands--Preoperative computed tomography scans may be inconclusive in distinguishing between stage pT2 and pT3a renal tumors. When performing laparoscopic partial nephrectomy, surgeons from the Cleveland Clinic recommend removing all peri-nephritic fat during the excision of locally advanced tumors, a step that they say is essential in duplicating open surgical oncologic principles.

Urology Times 2006 Rate Card

Urology Times 2006 Media Kit

A third interim safety analysis of an ongoing multicenter phase II trial of NX-1207, for the treatment of BPH, has revealed no serious side effects, according to Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp., the drug's manufacturer.

Former New York Knicks basketball star Earl "The Pearl" Monroe is the point man for the "Flomax One-Week Challenge," a national campaign to educate men about BPH.

The National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute have launched a comprehensive effort to accelerate the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through genome analysis technologies, especially large-scale genome sequencing.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have discovered that the activity of several embryonic stem cell genes is elevated in testicular cancer, providing some of the first molecular evidence of a link between embryonic stem cells and cancer.

A third interim safety analysis of an ongoing multicenter phase II trial of NX-1207, for the treatment of BPH, has revealed no serious side effects, according to Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp., the drug's manufacturer.

Urology Associates of Nashville, TN has opened a clinic dedicated to women's sexual health.

Measurement of telomerase activity in urine appears promising for the detection of bladder cancer in men, according to a study published last week in JAMA.

New Orleans--Hurricane Katrina has come and gone and in its wake we are left with devastation, carnage, and sadness. The region has more than 6,000 displaced physicians, and 156 AUA members have practices in the affected areas, according to AUA.

John J. Mulcahy, MD, PhD, has announced that he will be leaving Indiana University Medical Center and will move his practice to Phoenix, where he will be joining Urology Associates Ltd.

Mayo Clinic researchers say they have discovered that a molecule known as B7-H1 may serve as a "molecular armor," protecting kidney cancer by allowing it to grow and spread.

Extended-release tolterodinetartate (Detrol LA) significantly improves lower urinary tract storage symptoms from baseline in men after unsuccessful treatment with alpha-blocker therapy, according to a study published in the current Journal of Urology (2005; 174:2273-5).

An herbal extract preparation known as Zyflamend appears to suppress the growth of prostate cancer cells and induces the cells to self-destruct, according to Columbia University researchers.

Boehringer Ingelheim and the FDA have notified health care professionals of revisions to the precautions and adverse reactions sections of the prescribing information for tamsulosin hydrochloride (Flomax) for the treatment of BPH.

Men with infertility and abnormal sperm counts have a 20-fold greater incidence of testicular cancer than men in the general population, according to a study published in the Journal of Urology (2005; 174:1819-22).

Dendreon Corp. has reached an agreement with the FDA under the Special Protocol Assessment procedure to amend the design of its ongoing phase III (D9902B) clinical trial of sipuleucel-T (Provenge), the company?s investigational active cellular immunotherapy for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

Smaller ambulatory surgery centers continue to report better net incomes per case than their larger counterparts, while larger ASCs report lower operating costs, according to a newly released report from the Medical Group Management Association.