ABC of Mens Health Blog

UroToday.com - Currently, the most common curative treatment options for men with localized prostate cancer are radical prostatectomy, external beam radiotherapy and interstitial permanent brachytherapy and radical prostatectomy. Treatment decisions should particularly consider the specific risk and toxicity profile of a treatment method.
Buy generic diflucan There is a lack of prospective studies focusing on the sexual quality of life of prostate cancer patients before and after a definitive conformal radiotherapy from the patients’ perspective. The aim of this study was to assess prospectively the incidence of erectile and predictive factors in a patient population treated with the same radiotherapy technique and a homogenous dose level, without antiandrogen treatment before radiotherapy or in the follow-up period. Patient age, comorbidities, prostate volume, planning target volume, pre-treatment sexual function and treatment of erectile dysfunction have been considered.
As with other studies, this study supports a progressively decreasing sexual function with longer follow-up intervals due to chronic radiotherapy effects, patient age and comorbidities. A stable level cannot be expected in a population of men with prostate cancer. However, chronic erectile dysfunction can very well be predicted shortly after radiotherapy, so that erectile dysfunction cannot only be regarded as a chronic effect of irradiation. As common after radical prostatectomy, the initiation of an early treatment could result in improved erectile function after radical radiotherapy.
Patient age and sexual function are the most important prognostic factors for the return of potency after radical prostatectomy. As shown in our study, these factors are equally of major importance after radiotherapy. The best predictor for preserving erections sufficient for sexual intercourse is the occurrence of spontaneous erections in the morning or night, before treatment. Diabetic patients are not only predisposed for erectile dysfunction before radiotherapy, but additionally for post- radiotherapy acquired erectile dysfunction.
Written by Michael Pinkawa, MD, as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com
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Men’s Health News
Plans are in the pipeline to raise awareness of health issues which affect men in particular.
The Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says the government has set in motion plans for the development of Australia’s first health policy for men based on a draft document developed in 1996.
The Health Minister says a discussion paper followed by consultations across the country over the next 12 months, will raise awareness of preventable problems and specific health challenges which men need to deal with.
Ms Roxon says the resistance amongst men with regard to seeking treatment is an issue the government is determined to help men tackle.
The government’s national Men’s Health Policy aims to address the large diversity between the health of men and women.
The initiative has been given a kick start with a grant of $460,000 grant to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and another $95,000 to encourage men to seek preventative health checks.
The Men’s Health policy will aims to overcome the widespread resistance among men to seek treatment by making health services more male-friendly and to engage men in looking after their own health.
comprare generico cialis soft Research in recent years has revealed that not only do men on average die almost five years earlier than women, but they are also three times more likely to commit suicide and to die from HIV/AIDS, lung cancer, emphysema and liver diseases.
Ms Roxon says men’s health is an issue which is too often overlooked.
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Men’s Health News
Researchers at Rutgers’ Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy have shown that administering a combination of the widely used drugs Celebrex (celecoxib, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and Lipitor (atorvastatin, a cholesterol lowering drug) stops the transition of early prostate cancer to its more aggressive and potentially fatal stage.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States, with more than a quarter-million new cases appearing each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The findings are being presented by Rutgers Professor Xi Zheng at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego, April 14th.
In the early stage of the disease, when it is typically diagnosed, prostate cancer cells depend on androgen hormones, such as testosterone, to grow. Treatment at this stage involves either decreasing the production of the hormone or blocking its actions on the cancer cells.
"Anti-androgen therapy slows the prostate cancer but eventually the cancer becomes androgen-independent, the therapy becomes ineffective and the cancer cells become more aggressive," said Xi Zheng, assistant research professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, who conducted the study.
"Treatments available for the later stage cancers are not very good," said Allan Conney, director of Rutgers’ Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research, another researcher on the project. "Oncologists employ classical chemotherapy drugs which are very toxic and don’t work all that well."
Zheng and Conney’s research objective was to find a way to indefinitely delay the transition to androgen-independence, prolonging the time during which the cancer would be responsive to effective, low-toxicity, anti-hormone therapy.
Zheng explained that their experiments were first conducted on cell cultures in the laboratory, where the researchers tested the effects of the drugs on the growth of prostate cancer cells from four different cell lines. They then moved on to test the drugs on specially bred mice in which prostate cancer tumors were introduced under the skin. Celebrex alone, Lipitor alone, and the two in combination were tested at the lab bench and on the mice.
"A combination of low doses of Lipitor and Celebrex had a more potent inhibiting effect on the formation of later stage tumors than a higher dose of either agent alone," Zheng reported. "The results from our study indicate that a combination of Lipitor and Celebrex may be an effective strategy for the prevention of prostate cancer progression from the first to the second stage."
kaufen cialis soft Ohne Rezept Zheng also noted that the team is exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms to understand how Lipitor and Celebrex work on prostate cancer, perhaps identifying an important signaling pathway for tumor cell growth that the drugs inhibit.
Conney pointed out that previous experiments reported in the Sept. 15, 2007, issue of Clinical Cancer Research had demonstrated that the Lipitor-Celebrex combination also inhibited the growth of prostate cancer cells in the later androgen-independent stage.
"So if you can affect the early stage and prevent it from becoming the more severe form, that’s a good thing. If you can also inhibit the growth of the more severe form, that’s also a good thing," Conney said.
Human clinical trials are being planned at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick.
"If the clinical trials go well, we could have something available in five years, but it would be nice to speed that up," Conney said. "If the trials show that the drug therapy does a good job of preventing the cancer from advancing, we won’t need to worry about how to handle the more aggressive later stage cancer.
"This is something we hope is going to save lives," he added.

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Men’s Health News
Using a special ultrasound technique to spot areas of blood flow in the prostate gland may substantially reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies, according to a new study by urologists and radiologists at the Jefferson Prostate Diagnostic Center and the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia.
The researchers found that biopsies targeted to areas of increased blood flow in the prostate were twice as likely to be positive for cancer compared with conventional prostate biopsy techniques.
They reported their initial results from a clinical trial this week at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando.
According to Prostate Diagnostic Center co-director Edouard Trabulsi, M.D., assistant professor of Urology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, finding the best areas to perform biopsies in the prostate has always been difficult. Standard methods entail simply dividing the prostate into a dozen regions within the gland, almost randomly. Center co-director Ethan Halpern, M.D., who is principal investigator on the four-year, National Cancer Institute-supported trial, has been developing and refining techniques to enhance targeted biopsy of the prostate for more than a decade.
Dr. Trabulsi, Ethan Halpern, M.D., professor of Radiology and Urology at Jefferson Medical College, and their co-workers randomly divided 63 prostate biopsy patients into two groups. One group was given the drug dutasteride, which can reduce the blood flow in benign prostate tissue, while the other half received a placebo. They then compared the results from biopsies targeted by blood flow changes using contrast-enhanced ultrasound to those that were done the standard way. The study involved 979 biopsies.
"We’ve previously shown that a two-week course of the drug Avodart (dutasteride) before biopsy reduces the benign blood flow, or background noise," Dr. Trabulsi explains, "allowing us to see subtle flow changes to target for biopsy. kaufen viagra Ohne Rezept When we did this, we found that targeted biopsies based on the contrast-enhanced ultrasound are much more likely to detect prostate cancer. That’s the exciting part about this."
Dr. Halpern explains that standard procedures fail to diagnose prostate cancer in approximately 30 percent of men with the disease, even though the biopsy protocol may sample 12 to 18 tissue cores from the prostate. "In the future, our goal is to perform a limited number of targeted biopsies and leave the rest of the prostate alone," he says. "This will provide a safer, more cost-effective approach to diagnosing prostate cancer."
The doctors say that the current study involves a novel ultrasound algorithm called flash replenishment imaging to show fine vascular flow differences. "The novelty is using the dutasteride before biopsy, using contrast-enhanced ultrasound and using the latest ultrasound technology to look for blood flow changes associated with prostate cancer."
"We are beginning to have patients who were operated on come back in," Dr. Trabulsi notes. "If we can show that we reliably hit the areas of cancer based on the ultrasound results and didn’t miss any, it’s a home run."

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At the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Marshals seized more than 14,000 dosage units of Shangai Regular, Shangai Ultra, Super Shangai, Natural?« Super Plus, and Lady Shangai. generishe cialis online kaufen mastercard Although labeled as natural supplements, the seized products were all marketed to treat erectile dysfunction (ED), impotency, and/or to provide sexual enhancement, which caused them to be drugs under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
The seized products, valued at more than $100,000, contain undeclared active ingredients found in FDA-approved prescription drugs for ED, or similar substances. Use of these products may result in serious side effects and may interact in dangerous ways with medications that a consumer may already be taking.
"The FDA will not tolerate companies marketing unapproved drugs — products that have not proven to be safe or effective — as dietary supplements," said Margaret O’K. Glavin, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. "The agency will pursue necessary legal action to make sure companies and their executives manufacture and distribute safe drug products."
The seized products, which originated in China, are packaged and distributed by Shangai Distributors, Inc. of Coamo, Puerto Rico. Although the products’ labels state they are natural supplements, these products are drugs and their sale is illegal without FDA approval. Before a new drug product may be legally marketed, it must be shown to be safe and effective.
In response to a consumer complaint, the FDA conducted an inspection of Shangai Distributors Inc., in November 2007. The FDA’s investigation and testing revealed that the seized products contained active drug ingredients found in FDA-approved ED prescription drugs and/or a substance with a structure similar to such drugs that may cause similar side effects and drug interactions. None of the drug ingredients are listed on the labels of any of the seized products.
The undeclared ingredients in these products may interact with nitrates found in some prescription drugs (such as nitroglycerin) and can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels. Consumers with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease often take nitrates. ED is a common problem in men with these medical conditions. Because they may have been advised against taking ED drugs, they may seek out products like these because they are marketed as "all natural" or as not containing the active ingredients in approved, prescribed ED drugs. Additionally, because the manufacturing source of the active ingredients in these products is unknown, consumers should be aware that the safety, efficacy, and purity of these ingredients can not be validated.
Despite being advised of the findings and the potential adverse health risk posed by the seized products and that regulatory action was possible, the company did not take any action to correct the violations. The FDA issued a press release on December 28, 2007 advising consumers not to buy or use the products. Prior to the seizure, the Puerto Rico Department of Health embargoed the seized products to protect the citizens of Puerto Rico and to support the FDA’s enforcement actions.
The FDA advises consumers who have used any of these products to discontinue use and consult their health care providers if they have experienced any adverse events that they believe are related to the use of these products. Consumers and health care professionals can report adverse events to FDA’s MedWatch program at 800-FDA-1088 or online at FDA recommends that consumers talk to their health care provider about FDA-approved treatments for erectile dysfunction. FDA may take further regulatory actions to protect consumers from these illegal products.
The complaint was filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose M. Pizarro, deputy chief, Civil Division, United States Attorney’s Office, District of Puerto Rico.

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