Some of the drugs given to many men during their fight against prostate cancer can actually spur some cancer cells to grow, researchers have found. The findings were published online this week in a pair of papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The results may help explain a phenomenon that has bedeviled patients for decades. Hormone therapy, a common treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer, generally keeps the cancer at bay for a year or two. But then, for reasons scientists have never understood, the treatment fails in patients whose disease has spread – the cancer begins to grow again, at a time when patients have few treatment options left.

Each year nearly 33,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 10,000 die from the disease. It has become the most common cancer in men and mainly affects men over the age of 50. People affected and their families should be informed about all the options available to them - cryotherapyterm is one such treatment option.

Cryotherapy is based on the science of freezing at very cold temperatures to kill cancerous cells. This minimally invasive, non-surgical and non-radiation treatment freezes and destroys tumours. The treatment is performed by inserting very fine sealed needles directly into the tumours, through which Argon gas is circulated to reach sub-zero temperatures.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Testing men for elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the blood -- the gold standard screening test for prostate cancer -- may be biased against obese men, whose PSA levels tend to be deceptively low. And this bias may be creating more aggressive cancers in this population by delaying diagnosis, according to a new study led by investigators in the Duke Prostate Center and the Durham Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center.

"We know that obese men tend to have lower PSA values than their normal-weight counterparts, possibly caused by larger blood volumes which dilute the readings," said Stephen Freedland, M.D., a urologist at Duke and the Durham VA, and lead investigator on this study. "Now we know some of the real implications of this -- that these men are at a disadvantage in terms of prognosis compared to normal-weight men."

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis Cancer Center physicians today released results of research showing that Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange have greatly increased risks of prostate cancer and even greater risks of getting the most aggressive form of the disease as compared to those who were not exposed.

The findings, which appear online now and will be published in the September 15 issue of the journal Cancer, are the first to reliably link the herbicide with this form of cancer by studying a large population of men in their 60s and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test to screen for the disease.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have developed a novel approach to treating advanced prostate cancer that could be more effective with fewer side effectsterm.

Professor Wayne Tilley and Dr Lisa Butler of the University's Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratories have discovered that by using existing prostate cancer drugs in combination with new drugs at lower doses, they can expect to generate better results for patients than current treatments.

Growth of prostate cancer is initially dependent on hormones called androgens, which traditionally have been suppressed to stop tumour growth. However, despite an initial response, resistance to hormone deprivation often occurs and the tumour starts to grow again, Professor Tilley says.

NEW YORK (July 30, 2008) -- Robotic surgery, largely pioneered for prostate cancer surgery, is rapidly being adapted for use in other areas, including for bladder cancer patients. Urologic surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center now have significant experience -- and have demonstrated considerable success -- with robotics for removal of the bladder, also known as cystectomy. Their findings are published in a recent edition of the peer-reviewed publication, the British Journal of Urology-International.

Led by NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell's Dr. Douglas Scherr, the study shows that the robotic approach provides similar benefits to prostate resection, including dramatically faster recoveries with equal, or better, surgical precision. Specifically, robotic cystectomy patients have an average hospital stay of five days, compared with eight days for the standard open bladder surgery.

BOSTON--Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report they have blocked the development of prostate tumors in cancer-prone mice by knocking out a molecular unit they describe as a "powerhouse" that drives runaway cell growth.

In an article that is being published today as an advanced online publication by the journal Nature, the researchers say the growth-stimulating molecule called p110beta -- part of a cellular signaling network disrupted in several common cancers -- is a promising target for novel cancer therapies designed to shut it down. The report's lead authors are Shidong Jia, MD, PhD, Zhenning Liu, PhD, Sen Zhang PhD, and Pixu Liu, MD, PhD.

Using a breakthrough technology, researchers led by a Weill Cornell Medical College scientist have pinpointed the hormone estrogen as a key player in about half of all prostate cancers.

Estrogen-linked signaling helps drive a discrete and aggressive form of the disease caused by a chromosomal translocation, which in turn results in the fusion of two genes.

"Fifty percent of prostate cancers harbor a common recurrent gene fusion, and we believe that this confers a more aggressive nature to these tumors," explains study senior author Dr. Mark A. Rubin, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and vice chair for experimental pathology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Rubin is also attending pathologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An experimental drug has blocked the progression of prostate cancer in an animal model with an aggressive form of the disease, new research shows.

The agent, OSU-HDAC42, belongs to a new class of drugs called histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, compounds designed to reactivate genes that normally protect against cancer but are turned off by the cancer process.

The study, conducted by the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers who also developed the drug, showed that the agent kept mice with a precancerous condition from developing advanced prostate cancer.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) plus diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) can accurately diagnose residual or recurrent prostate cancer in patients treated with high-intensity focused ultrasonic ablation, a new study shows.

The study included 27 patients who had increased levels of prostate specific antigen after being treated with high-intensity focused ultrasonic (HIFU) ablation; 18 of these patients had local tumor progression seen at biopsy. DCE-MRI and DWI had about a 72% accuracy rate in determining which patients needed additional treatment because they had residual or recurrent cancer, said Chan Kyo Kim, MD, lead author of the study. The study found that DWI had fewer false positives than DCE-MRI, but DCE-MRI had fewer false negatives.

Veridex, LLC announced today that its licensing collaborator, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp), has commercially launched a new gene methylation test for prostate cancer. The new assay uses the biological specificity of 'DNA methylation' in prostate cancer, detecting the methylation of the gene GST-Pi. Methylation is a modification of DNA that occurs primarily in cancer. Veridex is developing the methylation markers in this tissue assay, GST-Pi, along with other markers, for a urine-based screening test for prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men in the U.S., with more than 230,000 cases diagnosed annually.

Scientists with UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and the Department of Urology have showed that lowering intake of the type of fat common in a Western diet helps prevent prostate cancer in mice, the first finding of its kind in a mouse model that closely mimics human cancer, researchers said.

The study, which appears in the April 15, 2008 issue of the journal Cancer Research, focused on fat from corn oil, which is made up primarily of omega-6 fatty acids, or the polyunsaturated fat commonly found in the Western diet. Omega-6 fats are found in high levels in baked and fried goods, said William Aronson, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and the study’s senior author.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Prostate tumors grew more quickly in mice who exercised than in those who did not, leading to speculation that exercise may increase blood flow to tumors, according to a new study by researchers in the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center (DCCC) and the Duke Prostate Center.

“Our study showed that exercise led to significantly greater tumor growth than a more sedentary lifestyle did, in this mouse model,” said Lee Jones, Ph.D., a researcher in the DCCC and senior investigator on this study. “Our thought is that we may, in the future, be able to use this finding to design better drug delivery models to more effectively treat prostate cancer patients, and those with other types of cancer as well.”

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Scientists have identified six new genes which play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes, and among the group is the second gene known to also play a role in prostate cancer.

The new findings bring the total number of genes or genomic regions implicated in diabetes to 16, said Laura Scott, assistant research scientist in the Department of Biostatistics. Researchers from the University of Michigan were one of three teams of scientists in Europe and North America that led the multi-group collaboration. The findings, which were published today in the journal Nature Genetics, provide new insights into the mechanisms which are usually responsible for the control of glucose, or sugar, levels in the blood, and to the derangements that can result in type 2 diabetes, which impacts more than 170 million people worldwide.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Men who are overweight or obese have lower concentrations of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in their blood than their normal-weight counterparts, according to a new study led by Duke University Medical Center researchers.

The finding echoes earlier results on PSA concentrations found in obese and overweight men with prostate cancer and highlights the need to reconsider PSA threshold values for heavier patients, and to encourage those patients to get serious about losing weight.

“A study released last year from our group showed that obese and overweight men with prostate cancer had deceptively low PSA scores compared to normal-weight men with prostate cancer, but we now have extended our findings to show that this trend holds true in the general screening population,” said Marva Price, R.N., a family nurse practitioner and researcher in Duke’s School of Nursing, the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Duke Prostate Center..