Treatment for Early Prostate Cancer Associated with Type of Specialist Seen
A new study analyzing men with localized prostate cancer shows that the specialty of the physician they see can influence the type of therapy they ultimately receive. The study, co-led by a urologist and a radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, found that patients aged 65 to 69 years old who consult a urologist are more likely to undergo surgery to remove the prostate, while those who consult a radiation oncologist and a urologist, regardless of age, usually receive radiation therapy.
“These practice patterns are no surprise but are notable because specialists who treat prostate cancer tend to favor the treatment they themselves deliver, despite the fact that no one has shown one treatment for early stage prostate cancer to be better than another,” said Thomas L. Jang, MD, MPH, a physician in the Department of Urology, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and co-lead author of the study. “It is very important for patients to receive an unbiased, balanced perspective on the full range of treatments.”
Tumor cell activity may provide clues for treating breast cancer in young women
When women under 50 develop breast cancer the disease tends to be more aggressive and less responsive to treatment than when it occurs in older women. Researchers at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center may have discovered a part of the reason why, and their findings may lead to targeted therapies that can help treat patients more effectively.
The researchers discovered that the tumors found in women under the age of 45 have certain patterns of cellular activity that confer a poorer prognosis in younger women, while the same tumor cell activity in older women confers a better prognosis, demonstrating the need for age-appropriate targeted therapies, said Carey Anders, M.D., a fellow in hematology-oncology at Duke and lead investigator on the study. For this study, researchers focused on women under the age of 45 because they were seeking to gather information specific to premenopausal women.
