How to train your bladder

If you experience a frequent urge to urinate—perhaps due to having an enlarged prostate if you’re a man, having given birth if you’re a woman, or having an “overactive bladder”—there may be a practical do-it-yourself solution to the problem, referred to as bladder training. It’s worth a try before resorting to medication or surgical procedures.

Read more at berkeleywellness.com HERE

Hydrogel spacer use during prostate radiation therapy – Community Experience

Reported in Urology Times:

For urologists and radiation oncologists alike, when treating prostate cancer, one recurring theme is “protect the rectum.” As surgeons, we learn meticulous techniques to avoid rectal injuries, and our radiation colleagues have long strategized on how to optimally deliver the maximum dose of tolerable radiation while minimizing radiation exposure to “organs at risk” such as the bladder, rectum, urethra, and penile bulb. In this era of dose escalation and hypofractionation, rectal toxicity is of paramount consideration.

In this article, we discuss one particular new product and how it may herald a significant change in the landscape of radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

Read the entire article on urologytimes.com HERE

Clinical Trials Using Enzalutamide (Xtandi)

Enzalutamide (XTANDI) is a prescription medicine used to treat men with prostate cancer that no longer responds to a medical or surgical treatment that lowers testosterone.  XTANDI is now approved to treat men with prostate cancer that no longer responds to treatment that lowers testosterone and has not spread to other parts of the body. This is also known as non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

This web page, published by the National Cancer Institute, lists the clinical trials using Enzalutamide.  Click here to view the article.

AR-V7 Liquid Biopsy Coming of Age

Once a man is castrate resistant and moves on a second line hormone therapy drug like Zytiga or Xtandi (aka AR inhibitors) it is inevitable that the Zytiga or Xtandi will also become ineffective.

When this happens, the question that comes is what should be the next treatment?  Generally, the options currently available are either to move to the drug not initially used ( Zytiga if Xtandi was first used or Xtandi if Zytiga was used) or instead to use taxane chemotherapy (Taxotere aka docetaxel).

Knowing which of these two options is best has been nothing but guesswork.  But, things are improving.  There is an investigational test that detects the expression of a protein called AR-V7 in the nuclei of circulating tumor cells taken from a vial of blood cells (liquid biopsy).  This test can help guide this decision.

A recent study (published in JAMA Oncology) evaluating this test has shown that a blood test can detect the protein called AR-V7 in circulating tumor cells and that the presence of this protein accurately predicts how well certain men will respond to AR inhibitors (Zytiga and Xtandi).

Read the complete blog on CancerABCs.org HERE