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Beaver Creek, CO--Driven by demand from U.S. consumers, business is booming for companies that produce dietary and herbal supplements, as well as health foods. Many patients, including those with prostate cancer, take a dizzying array of supplements and alternative therapies. Those who have not yet jumped on the supplement bandwagon frequently ask physicians which supplements they should take or which foods they should eat to ward off or treat prostate cancer.

Washington--Even after surgical ablation, posterior urethral valves (PUVs) in boys can cause bladder and kidney problems in later years. But now, for the first time, a team of pediatric urologists has shown that PUVs also can affect sex accessory glands and, ultimately, fertility. Justine M. Schober, MD, a pediatric urologist at Hamot Medical Center, Erie, PA, reported the group's findings here at the 2005 American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Urology annual meeting.

Beaver Creek, CO--Recent advancements in radioimmunoscintigraphy and the use of co-registration to fuse images have dramatically improved detection and localization of prostate cancer, according to Michael Manyak, MD.

Beaver Creek, CO--An in-depth pathologic review of specimens collected from participants in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) revealed that the reported increase in high-grade prostate cancer was most likely due to increased early detection of high-grade tumors in men receiving finasteride (Proscar), and that finasteride did not appear to potentiate the growth of high-grade prostate cancer. These findings were reported at the 16th annual International Prostate Cancer Update here by Scott Lucia, MD, associate professor of pathology, University of Colorado and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver.

Beaver Creek, CO--For patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer, the new standard of care is docetaxel (Taxotere)-based chemotherapy. The landmark TAX 327 study demonstrated an improvement in median survival and pain relief in patients with advanced, hormone-refractory disease who received this treatment regimen (N Engl J Med 2004; 351:1502-20). The challenge now is to look for new drug combinations that can provide additional benefits.

Beaver Creek, CO--For urologic surgeons who encounter positive surgical margins, the problem may be related to technique, and not simply patient selection.

Beaver Creek, CO--Urologists should not abandon combined androgen blockade as first-line therapy for metastatic prostate cancer, an expert in the disease told colleagues at the International Prostate Cancer Update here.

Beaver Creek, CO--Intermittent androgen suppression (IAS) is reported to be beneficial in select men with advanced prostate cancer, although definitive data are not yet available.

San Francisco--Despite improvements in detection and treatment over the past 2 decades, African-American men remain at higher risk for recurrence of prostate cancer than Caucasian men. While factors such as initial PSA levels and disease severity are similar between the two racial groups, African-American men are 11% more likely than Caucasian men to have a biochemical failure after radical prostatectomy, according to a new study.

San Francisco--The long-standing debate over radical prostatectomy versus radiation therapy for unfavorable-risk prostate cancer has not gone away. But if the recent Prostate Cancer Symposium reflects broader professional opinions, the surgery camp and the radiation camp are moving toward combination treatments. There are no definitive prospective randomized trials, but evidence of a consensus that prostatectomy plus radiation therapy may offer the best patient outcomes is emerging.

San Francisco--Complications related to prostate cancer therapy may affect a man's life, relationships, and overall sense of well-being. How a patient perceives these complications, commonly reported as quality of life, may be as important to some patients as being cured of the cancer itself.

San Francisco--The traditional bone scan remains an important tool for evaluating prostate cancer patients with a rising PSA. Next to PSA testing itself, metastable technetium-99 bone scans currently are the second most common test in men with rising PSA following definitive therapy, said Richard Wahl, MD, director of nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore. But as useful as bone scans can be, they have limited utility.

San Francisco--More experienced surgeons have more positive outcomes.

Benefits are more likely to be derived from a lifetime of dietary discretion rather than a mid-to late-life switch.

Beaver Creek, CO--A common type of medication taken for lowering cholesterol is also showing promise in the fight against prostate cancer.

Traverse City, MI--Oct. 1, 2006, marks the fifth anniversary of the date on which Michael Harris, MD, opted out of Medicaid and Medicare and rid himself of all commercial insurers. He put his urology practice on a strict cash-for-services basis in 2001 and he has not looked back.

San Francisco--A never-before-seen virus associated with prostate cancer suggests that infection may play a role in the development of the disease in genetically susceptible individuals. The new virus, XMRV, is 25 times more likely to be present in prostate cancer patients with a specific genetic mutation than it is in the general male population, researchers reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2006 Prostate Cancer Symposium here.

The Cleveland Clinic Glickman Urological Institute has established a $2 million education and research chair in honor of its chairman, Andrew C. Novick, MD.

Advanced Urology Associates, Inc., and Urology Inc. have merged to form Physicians Urology, which will become the largest fully integrated urology practice in the Akron, OH area with physicians experienced in a range of specialties.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has launched the Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey, an initiative to measure how satisfied providers in the fee-for-service program are with the services of the contractors who are responsible for processing their claims, educating them about policy changes, and responding to provider inquiries.

In a step toward understanding prostate disease, Australian researchers have used human embryonic stem cells to develop human prostate tissue, equivalent to that found in a young man.

The White House is expected to nominate the acting commissioner of the FDA, urologist Andrew von Eschenbach, MD, to formally head the agency, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.

The National Cancer Institute has launched a 3-year initiative to identify genetic alterations that make people susceptible to prostate and breast cancer.

A popular treatment for severe male urinary incontinence reached a major milestone last month: 100,000 implants, according to its manufacturer, American Medical Systems.

Intermittent tamsulosin (Flomax) treatment appears to be well tolerated and provides comparable improvements for abnormal ejaculation, according to a study by Turkish researchers.

Preliminary results of a small study show that high-dose statin therapy may help improve erectile dysfunction in men who had shown minimal reaction to sildenafil citrate (Viagra).

The time between prostate biopsy and radical prostatectomy does not appear to have a large effect on the risk of disease recurrence, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York.

More than 90% of patients with small kidney tumors are opting to undergo total nephrectomy, even though they may be eligible for partial nephrectomy, according to a recently published study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor.