New drug stops prostate cancer growth in its tracks

From New York Times article, "Trial Supports Earlier Use of a Prostate Cancer Drug" (May 17, 2012) ... Drug Zytiga prevents tumors from consuming the food it needs to grow in one-third of early-stage PCs. May be useful in avoiding aggressive treatments....I'd certainly ask my doctors about it before submitting to surgery or radiation, or look for another trial.  Worth a read, here's the lead:

A new drug used to treat advanced prostate cancer may also help men if used early in the course of the disease, before an operation, researchers reported Wednesday. Zytiga limits the production of testosterone, which fuels prostate tumor growth. 

In a small clinical trial, six months of treatment with the drug, Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga, added to standard therapy, eliminated or nearly eliminated tumors in about one-third of men whose disease had not yet spread beyond the prostate gland but was considered likely to do so. 

The exact significance of this must still be determined through larger studies. But researchers said that with breast cancer and bladder cancer, patients whose tumors are eliminated before an operation, by what is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tend to live longer....

My note:  What is "standard therapy" in third graph? 

Ultrasound new hope for prostate cancer?

Imagine treating prostate cancer in one sitting with a non-invasive therapy, few if any side effects, and it cures localized prostate cancer 95% of the time?  

Well, it's here -- actually it's been here for awhile, just not in the U.S.:  High-intensity Focused Ultrasound, or Hifu, has recently gotten some buzz as the "new hope" for prostate cancer treatment, thanks to the release of a major study in the UK.

(The research was published in the April 17 Lancet Oncology. Here's an overview story from CBS News' Health Pop.)

This is all great news — however, when I first started reading the articles hitting all the major health and news outlets, all I could think about is why a credible study on HiFU hasn't been conducted in the U.S. years ago.

Hifu is a procedure where sound waves heat up the prostate and kill the cancer, without damaging healthy tissue.  It's ultrasound.  And you can consult a doctor in New York and head to the Bahamas for treatment, or just travel to Europe for the therapy.

But instead, most American men are faced with surgery or radiation options, both of which bring significant risks of incontinence and impotence to varying degrees. 

Why have we spent trillions in the U.S. on radiation and surgical treatments, drained the health care system on these expensive therapies — when ultrasound might be a simpler, less expensive and more effective therapy?