The American Urological Association will publish in March its new guideline which recommends that “healthy men over 55 who are concerned enough about the risk of prostate cancer to undergo annual PSA screening should consider taking the drug finasteride daily to redue their risk of developing the disease”. They are not advising it but only suggesting they should consider it. This is based on the results of a large studiy involving over 18,000 men which reported that finasteride can reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer by as much as 25 percent.
Finasteride (brand name Proscar) is an antiandrogen medication which has been used to help shrink the prostate for over 15 years. This new indication is significant. Although the drug is now in generic form, it still costs about $1000 per year to take daily.
Prostate Cancer
A study from the National Cancer Institute in Paris reports that as little as a half glass of wine per day increases the risk of colon cancer by nine percent and the risk of mouth cancer by 168 percent. This study confirms other studies that found alcohol increases the risk of some cancers. Drinking alcohol and smoking increases the risk even further they report. (Dr. Mac notes - It doesn’t seem anything is safe these days.)
Uncategorized
New research just published in the British Journal of Urology (BJU) International compared patients who had a radical prostatectomy alone with those who had external beam radiation therapy following surgery. They report no significant difference in overall or cause-specific survival.
Prostate Cancer
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh report that “even strong associations between gene variants and disease do not necessarily translate into useful clinical tools for evaluating individual risk.” They warned that their work “suggests that patients and physicians should not put much stock in genetic disease-risk tests currently marketed to consumers, which are based on the same SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms).”
Genetics
A study from the Mayo Clinic suggests that “men who experience erectile dysfunction between the ages of 40 and 49 are twice as likely to develop heart disease.” In the study, published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, “men with erectile dysfunction [had] an 80 percent higher risk of heart disease.”
ED
