The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
arstechnica.com
The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#2There are a lot of overgeneralized statements here and facts that border on misleading. Metastatic prostate cancer is relatively rare and most patients with prostate cancer generally pass from other diseases long before pc progression
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#3There are a lot of overgeneralized statements here and facts that border on misleading. Metastatic prostate cancer is relatively rare and most patients with prostate cancer generally pass from other diseases long before pc progression
Isn't that what they said?
The 10-year life expectancy for localized prostate cancer is around 98 percent. It’s remarkably curable. Many prostate tumors are so slow-growing and nonthreatening, they’re not even treated—they’re simply monitored to make sure they stay nonthreatening. “You’re more likely to die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer,” says Dr. Isla Garraway, director of research in the Department of Urology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#4As someone with low-grade prostate cancer, the thing I'm most hoping for (for now) is better imaging or other monitoring tools since I'm looking at getting a biopsy every other year or so. The biopsy itself isn't too bad as far as medical procedures, but each one has a risk of infection so I wish there were a less invasive way. I'll get MRI's too, but they don't work as well at detecting small cancerous areas, my MRI missed the cancer that a subsequent biopsy found.
Though I also wouldn't mind targeted immunotherapy that could target the cancer without any invasive procedures, chemicals or radiation.
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#5[deleted]
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#6Super interesting read. I had prostate cancer 15 years ago at age 40 and had my prostate surgically removed, fully recovered now but it was stressful. It's great to see so much progress in the diagnostic field since the decision to have surgery is not an easy one. It's almost like there are two versions: the one you can live with for a long long time and the kind that kills you quick. Since the PSA test is so sensitive but not terribly specific a lot of men have to make a call based on pretty low-quality information, better diagnostics will go a long way toward helping in that area.
Paradoxically, for me the PSA test now is a great tool. Since it's very sensitive anything other than zero is a sign something is going on, if you still have your prostate PSA bounces around quite a bit even if you don't have cancer so it's a terrible first diagnostic.
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#7There are a lot of overgeneralized statements here and facts that border on misleading. Metastatic prostate cancer is relatively rare and most patients with prostate cancer generally pass from other diseases long before pc progression
It's not particularly rare. Even if prostate cancer will only kill a small percentage of men that have it, it's such a common cancer that it still ends up killing around 34,130 men a year in the US making it the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the US. Figures are similar for other countries.
source: https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/prostate-cancer/statisti...
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#8It has one of the highest early-stage survival rates of any cancer,
I guess it does if one has usable health insurance. The scores of millions of Americans who don't - I guess they make up a lot of that death rate.
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#9As someone with low-grade prostate cancer, the thing I'm most hoping for (for now) is better imaging or other monitoring tools since I'm looking at getting a biopsy every other year or so. The biopsy itself isn't too bad as far as medical procedures, but each one has a risk of infection so I wish there were a less invasive way. I'll get MRI's too, but they don't work as well at detecting small cancerous areas, my MRI…
[deleted]
Re: The challenge of finding new tools to fight prostate cancer
#10It has one of the highest early-stage survival rates of any cancer, I guess it does if one has usable health insurance. The scores of millions of Americans who don't - I guess they make up a lot of that death rate.
I'm not sure that's true - for many (most?) people with low-grade prostate cancer, it's not going to end up being what they die of and can just be ignored. There's debate about whether or not PSA screening is leading to too much unnecessary cancer treatment.
So it's possible that doing nothing at all is as good as more screening and early treatment.