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Post-Surgery Radiation Boosts Prostate Cancer Results
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >> The bottom line, according to Swanson: "The message to the urological community is that, yes, your patients will do better [with radiation] than with just surgery alone."
Prostate cancer risk was the focus for Marks' group of researchers, as well. He said recent media hype on the power of testosterone to boost aging males' libido and muscle tone have pushed annual U.S. sales of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) to more than $700 million.
However, doctors have long known that testosterone can also raise a man's risk for prostate malignancy. So, Marks' team decided to look at the biological effect of six months of standard TRT, given in injections every two weeks, on the prostate tissue of 44 men ranging from 44 to 78 years of age.
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All of the men had relatively low levels of circulating testosterone upon entering the study, with no sign of prostate malignancy. Forty of the men agreed to provide the researchers with prostate tissue biopsies at the beginning and end of the six-month trial.
The researchers said they found no detectable change in prostate tissue after six months of TRT, despite the fact that the therapy caused blood levels of circulating testosterone to rise to mid-normal levels. Concentrations of male hormones in prostate tissues differed only slightly after therapy, and the team saw no changes in cells -- for example, alterations in gene expression or cell proliferation -- that might point to an increased risk for cancer.
While this is good news for men who are taking or might take TRT, Marks stressed that the study only examined the prostate tissue biology of a select group of men with no prior signs of cancer.
"These data do not assure prostate safety for populations of older men harboring highly prevalent subclinical disease," said Marks, who is also clinical professor of surgery/urology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We know that if you do thorough studies of the prostate glands of aging men, microscopic [traces] of cancer are present in many of them."
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Copyright © 2006 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 11/14/2006
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SOURCES: Nov. 14, 2006, news briefing, American Medical Association, New York City, with Gregory Swanson, M.D., associate professor, radiation oncology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio; Dr. Stephen Kaplan, M.D., professor, urology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York City; Leonard Marks, M.D., medical director, Urological Sciences Research Foundation, Culver City, Calif., and clinical professor, surgery/urology, UCLA School of Medicine; Nov. 15, 2006, Journal of the American Medical Association
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