How high-risk men's lives may be extended 37%

UK clinical trial shows that two prostate cancer therapies can be much better than one

Can combining two existing therapies extend the life of men with advanced, high-risk prostate cancer by 37%?

A new study seems to answer that question with a "yes."

Nicholas James

"These are the most powerful results I've seen from a prostate cancer trial," reported Nicholas James, professor of clinical oncology at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, United Kingdom, lead author of an abstract presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, in a recent story by Jessica Glenza in The Guardian. 

It's a "once in a career feeling," he noted. "This is one of the biggest reductions in death I've seen in any clinical trial for adult cancers."

Researchers, the Glenza story indicated, "combined standard hormone therapy with a drug called abiraterone, which is typically used only for cancer patients whose disease has stopped responding to standard hormone therapy."

Patients who received both medications did have "slightly stronger side effects," however — "especially cardiovascular and liver problems."

The study, which looked at a group of 2,000 men, was done as part of an ongoing randomized trial conducted in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

James also was quoted as saying that "abiraterone not only prolonged life, but also lowered the chance of relapse by 70% and reduced the chance of serious bone complications by 50%."

More than 27,000 men in the United States, and 11,000 men in the UK, die of prostate cancer each year.

Details about many clinical studies on cancer can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Advice carries perils, Guardian writer warns

Don't tell cancer patients how to cure themselves, cautions prize-winning journalist

Steven W. Thrasher

Beware!

It's dangerous to tell cancer patients what they could be doing to cure themselves.

At least that's what Steven W. Thrasher wrote recently in an opinion piece in The Guardian.

Thrasher, an award-winning print, digital and radio journalist, believes recommending pseudo-scientific treatments (or homeopathic remedies) is one of the worst things you can do to relatives, friends or co-workers.

He suggests that falls into the abyss of taking your own mortality fears out on cancer patients.

Thrasher starts off by giving the example that "if you're a religious person, for the love of God, don't tell someone with cancer that if they'd just drink juice (or take vitamin, or pray or have a 'positive attitude') that they could cure themselves."

And he immediately follows up with, "And if you're not a religious person, for the love of reason and decency, don't tell someone with cancer any of these things, either."

Thrasher notes that his sister died after having lived with a rare type of sarcoma tissue cancer for 15 years — and his having watched people tell her (and him) "that she could cure herself…if she were only willing to take vitamins, or eat raw food, or do yoga or look on the bright side of things" — none of which, he adds, "have been validated by peer-reviewed science" or are true.

Any more than suggestions that folks should eat raw calf liver or "shove coffee grounds into their rectums."

Advice like that, he insists, is (a) condescending, (b) "a sneaky and harmful way of dealing with your own fear of death," and (c) "blames the sick person for your discomfort with their reality."

He quotes comedian George Carlin's line that "if you want to do something to help someone in distress…unplug their clogged toilet or paint the garage."

More seriously, he says that telling cancer patients "they've missed a simplistic way they could have avoided their fate further isolates and shuns them."

"Trust yourself to love them," he concludes, "in the condition they're in, instead of ignorantly and egotistically giving useless advice that won't ultimately change their prognosis."

Tips on how to be a real help — based on real experience — can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.