Blog Updates for May 2009

---

May 25/09. On the Calculators page we added: Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer. This calculator answers the question of whether the patient has castrate resistant prostate cancer and what the optimal treatment is. In association with this calculator readers may wish to view this presentation by Nicholas Vogelzang (papers).

---

May 10/09. In Advice to the Newly Diagnosed we added: Major medical centers routinely circulate news releases on highly limited human studies (uncontrolled interventions, small samples [< 30], surrogate primary outcomes or unpublished data) yet in a study of 40 such releases "58% lacked the relevant cautions". [PMID: 19414840] [Full Text]. Journalists then uncritically report on them.

---

May 8/09. In How Healthy Men Can Reduce Their Risk we added: In a 2005 review of the data from 50,000 men in the Health Professionals study, Harvard researchers found that those with the highest level of physical activity had only one third of the rate of advanced prostate cancer relative to those at the lowest level of physical activity (after adjusting for risk factors such as BMI, etc.). Also those at the highest physical activity level had only 26% the rate of fatal prostate cancer relative to those at the lowest level. The benefit only applied to those at the highest level of physical activity. Also the overall overall prostate cancer rates were not reduced but it did reduce advanced and fatal rates. See [PMID: 15883238] [Full Text].

---

May 7/09. In Testosterone Metabolism and Prostate Cancer we added: A May 2009 study [PMID: 19414838] found "a significant statistical association between patients' eventual death from prostate cancer and abnormal expression (using protein staining) of "bcl-2", which regulates cell death, or of the "p53" tumor suppressor gene. Similarly, high microvessel density (the number of small blood vessels in the tumor) from biopsy specimens taken at diagnosis was also associated with an increased risk of death over 11 to 16 years." [summary].

---

May 6/09. In Bradford Hill Criteria of Causation we added: A 2007 paper in PLoS Medicine estimated that 40% of all medical papers published were shaped behind the scenes by pharmaceutical companies in a process the paper refers to the ghost management (which is not the same as ghost writing). See [PMID: 17896859] [Full Text].

---

May 4/09. In Lymph Node Dissection added: A 2009 review of Lymph Node Dissection in European Urology is available in [PMID: 19297079] [Full Text]. Note the tables in particular in this last review.

---

May 1/09. In Advice to the Newly Diagnosed we added: This Yananow article Elephant in the Room by Terry Herbert has further statistics and information on outlook.

---

May 1/09. In PSA Screening and Early Detection. Part 3. Current Environment we added: Since the above was written the AUA Best Practices Statement has been released. A [summary] is available as well.