Prostate Cancer

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A study published in the journal Cancer on May 9 has now specifically examined the outcome of cancer survivorship of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual population. The study authors found that cancer outcomes differ based on sexual orientation.

An analysis of data from 3,400 men in the large nationwide Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial indicates that, contrary to what might be expected, men with the highest blood percentages of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), an omega-3 fatty acid commonly found in fatty fish, had 2.5 times the risk of developing aggressive, high-grade prostate cancer, compared with men who had the lowest levels.

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of death in men in the United States; more than 217,730 new cases were expected to be diagnosed in 2010.[1] Although the majority of patients with advanced prostate cancer have an initial response to androgen deprivation, essentially all patients eventually progress to a castration-resistant state, manifested by rising levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA),

In a study reported in Nature online on February 2, researchers describe a four-gene signature that was more accurate than the standard Gleason score test in predicting which patients would die from metastatic spread of their prostate cancer.

The number of patients in the U.S. treated with radiation has increased at an average annual rate of about 7% between 2007 and 2009, according to the “2010 Radiation Therapy Market Summary Report” by IMV. Breast, prostate, and lung cancers continue to be the cancer types treated most frequently with radiation.

The prostate cancer drug Provenge (sipuleucel-T) offers a moderate survival benefit to patients, according to an analysis performed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The analysis was undertaken as part of a CMS review initiated in July to determine whether to cover the cost of the therapy.