| ID cancer early, then get yearly screenings
A smile stretched across Bill Nevels' youthful face as he reminisced about peeking into George Steinbrenner's office. As he tells it, the New York Yankees owner had left early because his team was losing, and Nevels' grown son's connections got them the sports equivalent of a backstage pass. A sports fan extraordinaire and longtime grade school coach, Nevels, 72, isn't short on sports stories and he has a zest for telling them. But nearly a decade ago, as he was just getting into retirement, Nevels wasn't sure how many big-time sporting events he'd be able to make. He had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent external beam radiation followed up with brachytherapy in which radiation oncologist Dr. Marc Apple implanted tiny "seeds" in Nevels' prostate that emitted a controlled dose of radiation.
High Dose Radiation for Prostate Cancer Won't Raise Sexual Dysfunction
TUESDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Among prostate cancer patients undergoing a high-tech form of radiation therapy, exposure to a higher amount of radiation over a shorter time span poses no added risk for impaired sexual function, new research reveals. "For men getting a high dose of radiation in a shorter amount of time than is typical -- meaning getting higher doses per day for fewer days -- a loss of sexual function is the chronic side effect that concerns most," noted study co-author Dr. Eric Horwitz, a clinical director in the department of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Medical Center in Philadelphia. "But we found that sexual function wasn't any worse than when patients got radiation in the conventional high-dose way," he said. Horwitz and lead author Mark Buyyounouski, also at Fox Chase, were expected to present their team's findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, in Los Angeles.
Hyperthermia Combined with Radiation and Androgen Therapy Provides ...
BSD Medical Corp. (AMEX:BSM) today announced that the International Journal of Hyperthermia has published the preliminary results of a phase II clinical study involving 144 patients with locally advanced prostate cancer. In this study BSD Medical's BSD-2000 hyperthermia system was used to deliver local hyperthermia combined with conformal radiation therapy and androgen suppression therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer. Hyperthermia combined with radiation and androgen therapy demonstrated results in survival similar to treatments using higher radiation doses, with no significant side effects associated with either hyperthermia or radiation therapy. The report is entitled "Conformal radiotherapy plus local hyperthermia in patients affected by locally advanced high risk prostate cancer: Preliminary results of a prospective phase II study" (see Int.
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