Prostate cancer is the second deadliest cancer among men, but not all types of the disease are as deadly as others. That has led to confusion over screening. An expert explains why new guidelines make sense.
Most doctors and nurses agree exercise is beneficial but don’t routinely prescribe exercise as part of their patients’ cancer treatment plan.
Photo credit: Exercise Oncology Team at Australian Catholic University
Historically the advice to cancer patients was to rest and avoid activity. We now know this advice may be harmful to patients, and that every person with cancer would benefit from exercise medicine.
Prostate cancer cell, viewed with a scanning electron microscope.
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Since the 1980s, PSA tests have been used for the diagnosis and follow-up of prostate cancer. However, its use as a screening test for prostate cancer remains controversial.
Liquid biopsy is less invasive than standard biopsy, where a needle is put into a solid tumour to confirm a cancer diagnosis.
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Peter Gibbs, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
There are currently few effective and non-invasive methods to screen for early stages of cancer. But scientists have now developed a new blood test that promises to detect eight different cancers.
Even if they are not treated, only about three per cent of men will die of prostate cancer over their lifetime, most in their 70s or 80s.
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Men diagnosed with prostate cancer should be given all their options for treatment before they make a decision. In Australia today, this isn’t the rule, but the exception.
Some conditions should be classified as normal in some people and don’t need treatment.
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Cancer care is often impersonal, industrial and needlessly stressful. Allowing patients to witness personal introductions between their physicians would help ease their anxiety and build trust.
Digitized strand of DNA.
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Genetic testing is revealing important information about disease risks, and consumers can now pay for a test to know their risk. They might be better off if their doctors considered these risks, too.
Getting the right amount of radiation is a fine balance between therapy and harm. A common way to improve the benefit-to-cure ratio is to fire multiple beams at the tumour from different directions.
Family practicing mindfulness together.
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With changes to health care insurance on hold, now may be a good time to focus not on health insurance but on health. More and more studies show that we do have some control over that. Here’s how.
We know obesity is bad for health - but most people don’t realise it’s implicated in causing many cancers.
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Obesity is linked with a host of health outcomes. Both a disease itself and a risk factor linked to many others, we explore the linkages between obesity and cancer.
Mindfulness offered no benefit for reducing anxiety or distress in men with advanced prostate cancer.
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Currently, seven cancer types are listed in the top 20 causes of death in Australia. These are cancers of the lung, blood and lymph, bowel, prostate, breast, pancreas, skin and some childhood cancers.
Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, AMREP Department of Medicine, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne & Senior Medical Oncologist and Palliative Care Physician, Melbourne Oncology Group, Cabrini Haematology and Oncology Centre, Wattletree Road, Malvern, Monash University