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Eric J. Small, MD

Articles by Eric J. Small, MD

The use of complementary and alternative medicine is a well-known phenomenon among cancer patients, and prostate cancer patients are no exception. The review article by Drs. Das and Kaplan nicely summarizes most of the data available on the use of PC-SPES, selenium, and vitamin E by prostate cancer patients. These three agents are probably the most widely used complementary approaches in prostate cancer, and they are the ones that have been studied most extensively. However, true data on efficacy, careful toxicity analyses, dose-response analysis, or pharmacokinetic analyses of these agents are extremely limited.

The explosive increase in the apparent incidence of prostate cancer in the United States (which is due, in large measure, to wider efforts at early detection) has been accompanied by a dramatic stage migration, which can also be attributed to the increased use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA).