COLD PC KILLER: New crytotherapy without side effects?

Just before heading to press with The Prostate Storm, something very cool, literally, crossed my desk on a new form of  crytotherapy that may actually kill prostate cancer cells without the usual side effects.

Well, that's the promise anyway.

It's called focal cryoablation, which allows doctors to freeze cancer cells at negative 40 degrees, using 3D biopsies to target the treatment directly to the tumor.  Sounds like a targeted cold therapy to me -- not unlike the targeted radiation of IGRT compared to the old shotgun approach with external beam.

In conventional crytotherapy, the treatment would freeze the prostate in order to kill off clusters of cancer cells. Side effects are considered rather mild, although the big risk is the impairment of sexual function, so I suppose it depends on your definition of “mild.” The freezing of the prostate may destroy the nerve bundles responsible for erections.

Are Men With Localized Prostate Cancer Being Overtreated?

The other day I'm talking to a friend whose dad, at 75, elected to have da Vinci robotic surgery for localized PC. I couldn't believe his dad had done anything. He had a Gleason score of 6, which is not life threatening at all and indicates a super slow growing cancer, especially at his age:  Why go through the surgery and risk the side effects of therapy?  Which is not fun.

Because, he explained, "my Dad wanted it out."

Get the cancer out at all costs.  Well, that's the first problem.  Most guys don't understand not everyone needs to get rid of prostate cancer, that most ALL men get  PC if they live long enough, and that about 50% of it is so slow growing it's not a risk to their life, according to research from scientists at the University of Michigan (The Prostate Cancer Quandary, Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2010).

Half of all prostate cancer is not a threat.  But guys are freaked out by having it.  Yet doctors are not educating them on watchful waiting as a smarter  option.  Smarter because the side effects of treatment are rough, and likely lifelong -- and completely unnecessary for many guys.

We're Back Writing This Blog Again

After taking off more than two years to write "The Prostate Triple-Whammy: One Guy Battles Prostate Cancer, BPH and Prostatitis, And Bets On A Cure-All," I'm back writing this blog as a complement to the book. I'll use the blog to present new information, research, and personal reflections on the aftermath of aggressive radiation therapy.

The author: Back to normal after PC, kinda sorta

I wrote the book in fits and starts.  It started as a blog chronicle of my treatments. Several people, including my wife, Lorraine, encouraged me to turn those vignettes into something longer.  I kept writing about the research and issues I was uncovering. Eventually I decided to try and organize a book that used my personal experience to frame the challenges that many men diagnosed with prostate cancer face today.

Somewhere along the way I began to suspect the cancer was linked to the years of prostate and bladder issues that I had suffered through -- the symptoms of BPH, chronic and acute prostatitis, and too many urinary tract infections.  The doctors told me these diseases were not linked -- they existed independent of one another -- but alas, I stumbled on research from John Hopkins Research, a fairly credible group of research scientists, who disagreed with my doctors.