JOURNAL WATCH

Most of these articles are full length, online and free to read. We add titlesincluding older "classics" and trim the list as articles seem less relevant.

The list is roughly grouped by topic. Articles listed here are accessible in free full text but may be out of date or less useful than others available via subscription or in libraries.

Our selection aims to give a taste of how specialists think as well as an introduction to the wealth of information that can patients can discuss with their physicians to help make choices.

Don't limit yourself to the internet. Medical libraries and interlibrary loan are great assets for people looking for in-depth information. Most librarians will make time to help cancer patients. If you are looking for a specific topic here, please search it with your browser Edit/Find functions.

Managing metastatic bone pain - Radiotherapy and bisphosphonates are effective for metastases and pain British Medical Journal (BMJ) Oct 2004

Darbepoetin Alfa Versus Epoetin Alfa in Patients with Chemotherapy-Induced Anemia as effective and more convenient? The Oncologist, July 2004

Intermittent Androgen Deprivation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Mohammad H. Rashid, Uzair B. Chaudhary, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC The Oncologist June 2004

Natural History of Early, Localized Prostate Cancer Jan-Erik Johansson et al. JAMA June 9, 2004 (PDF download)

The Prostate Puzzle - What's behind the controversy over screening and treating by Mitzi Baker, Stanford Medicine Magazine Fall 2003

The true seeds of cancer -- are treatments targeting the wrong cell? by Amy Adams Stanford Medicine Magazine Fall 2004

Identification of a prostate cancer susceptibility locus on chromosome 7q11–21 in Jewish families PNAS | February 17, 2004 "... 23% of all prostate cancer cases diagnosed at <65 years of age may be due to inherited mutations in susceptibility genes..observations have motivated a large body of work aimed at finding susceptibility genes involved in hereditary prostate cancer ..."

Vitamin E succinate inhibits the function of androgen receptor and the expression of prostate-specific antigen in prostate cancer cells University of Rochester, PNAS | May 28, 2002

Web
psa-rising.com   

Inhibition of arachidonate 5-lipoxygenase triggers massive apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells Jagadananda Ghosh and Charles E. Myers, PNAS 1998 "Diets high in fat are associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer, although the molecular mechanism is still unknown.... ...that arachidonic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid common in the Western diet, stimulates proliferation of prostate cancer cells through production of the 5-lipoxygenase metabolite, 5-HETE (5-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid).... "

Health Issues in Men: Part I. Common Genitourinary Disorders. American Family Physician, June 15 2000. By Ted D. Epperly, COL. MC, USA and Kevin E. Moore, CPT, MC, USA, Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia. "Common genitourinary health issues that arise in the care of male patients include prostatitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia, urogenital cancers, premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction." The article offers an overview of these conditions.

The role of prostatic specific antigen (PSA) in the detection and management of prostate cancer A F Nash and I Melezinek Medical Research Department, AstraZeneca, Macclesfield, UK. In Endocrine-Related Cancer March 2000 Volume 7, Issue 1. Abstract & full text .pdf file.

Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) Best Practice Policy Oncology, Vol 14, No 2 (February 2000)

Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT): A New Promising Technology in Radiation Oncology Bin S. Teh, Shiao Y. Woo and E. Brian Butler Department of Radiology/Radiation Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas The Oncologist, Vol. 4, No. 6, 433-442, December 1999.

Combining Radiotherapy with Gene Therapy for Prostate Cancer. Adding gene therapy may cause radiosensitization producing additive cancer cell kill. Early clinical trial underway at Baylor College of Medicine. Lead author Bin S. Teh, M.D. Full text medical report.

Controversies Surrounding Androgen Deprivationfor Prostate Cancer (CME) (PDF file: 172Kb) Stephen G. Patterson, MD, Lodovico Balducci, MD, and Julio M. Pow-Sang, MD, Cancer Control, July/August 2002 Needs Acrobat Reader, free and easy to use, click here

Management of Hormone-Sensitive and Hormone-Refractory Metastatic Prostate Cancer Randall Rago, MD

Development of GnRH Antagonists for Prostate Cancer: New Approaches to Treatment Terry Cook and William P. Sheridan Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, California, USA. Fundamentals of Cancer Medicine, The Oncologist, Vol. 5, No. 2, 162-168, April 2000.

Prostate cancer: molecular biology of early progression to androgen independence M D Sadar1, M Hussain2 and N Bruchovsky1 1Department of Cancer Endocrinology, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2Division of Hematology/Oncology, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA In Endocrine-Related Cancer December 1999 Volume 6, Issue 4 Read the abstract -- and download the full article as an Acrobat Reader file.

State-of-the-Art Treatment of Metastatic Hormone-Refractory Prostate Cancer : Susan Goodin, Kamakshi V. Rao, Robert S. DiPaola The Oncologist, Vol. 7, No. 4, 360-370, August 2002

Rectal bleeding after radiation therapy for prostate cancer: check for other disease (from our archives, 2001

Urinary and Sexual Function After Radical Prostatectomy for Clinically Localized Prostate Cancer The Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study Janet L. Stanford, PhD et al JAMA Vol. 283 No. 3, January 19, 2000 (Full text now requires purchase)

Fom the abstract:

"Results  At 18 or more months following radical prostatectomy, 8.4% of men were incontinent and 59.9% were impotent. Among men who were potent before surgery, the proportion of men reporting impotence at 18 or more months after surgery varied according to whether the procedure was nerve sparing (65.6% of non-nerve-sparing, 58.6% of unilateral, and 56.0% of bilateral nerve-sparing). At 18 or more months after surgery, 41.9% reported that their sexual performance was a moderate-to-large problem. Both sexual and urinary function varied by age (39.0% of men aged <60 years vs 15.3%-21.7% of older men were potent at 18 months [ P <.001]; 13.8% of men aged 75-79 years vs 0.7%-3.6% of younger men experienced the highest level of incontinence at 18 months [ P = .03]), and sexual function also varied by race (38.4% of black men reported firm erections at 18 months vs 25.9% of Hispanic and 21.3% of white men; P = .001).

Conclusions  Our study suggests that radical prostatectomy is associated with significant erectile dysfunction and some decline in urinary function. These results may be particularly helpful to community-based physicians and their patients with prostate cancer who face difficult treatment decisions."

Clinical Approaches to Osseous Metastases in Prostate Cancer Michael J. Morris, Howard I. Scher The Oncologist, April 2003.

Nine articles about relieving cancer fatigue. Click to explore this freely accessible issue of The Oncologist, February 2003 issue. Posted July 2003

Cancer-Related Fatigue: book chapter to download as a .pdf file

Resolving the Frustration of Fatigue Wendy S. Harpham, MD CA Cancer J Clin 1999;49:178-189.

Quinazoline-derived 1-Adrenoceptor Antagonists Induce Prostate Cancer Cell Apoptosis Via an 1-Adrenoceptor-independent Action Cynthia M. Benning and Natasha Kyprianou Division of Urology, Departments of Surgery, Biochemistry, & Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201 [ Cancer Research 62, 597-602, January 15, 2002] Men with BPH and some men with advanced prostate cancer use Hytrin, Cardura or Flomax to make urination easier. Natasha Kyprianou and team have published results of a series of lab studies which show that Hytrin and Cardura, but NOT Flomax, have some anti-cancer effects on advanced prostate cancer cells but NOT on BPH nor on normal prostate cells NOR on hormone-sensitive cells. Warning: all three of these prescription drugs are dose-limited by their effects on blood pressure.

Androgen-independent Induction of Prostate-specific Antigen Gene Expression via Cross-talk between the Androgen Receptor and Protein Kinase A Signal Transduction Pathways Marianne D. Sadar Department of Cancer Endocrinology, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, V5Z 4E6 Canada. Connects with article above.

Maximal androgen withdrawal for prostate cancer therapy; current status and future potential S Leewansangtong and E D Crawford, Division of Urology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver Colarado, USA In Endocrine-Related Cancer, December 1998 Volume 05, Issue 4, A Special Section about Androgen Withdrawal in Prostate Cancer. Read the abstract -- and download the full article as an Acrobat Reader file.

Cancer patients' information needs and information seeking behaviour: in depth interview study British Medical Journal - BMJ 2000; 320:909-913 ( 1 April ) Geraldine M Leydon, et al. Why somw cancer patients may not want or seek information about their condition beyond that volunteered by their physicians at times during their illness.

Reality Testing in Cancer Treatment: The Phase I Trial of Endostatin David P. Ryan, et al., Massachusetts General Hospital, Hematology-Oncology Department, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The Oncologist, Vol. 4, No. 6, 501-508, December 1999

Cancer, Coagulation, and Anticoagulation Anthony Letaia, and David J. Kutera a Hematology-Oncology Department, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts. The Oncologist, Vol. 4, No. 6, 443-449, December 1999. Blood clots affect a percentage of men with advanced prostate cancer. An overview of standard treatments (heparin and warfarin) and new therapies (LMWH preparations enoxaparin (Lovenox®), dalteparin (Fragmin®), and ardeparin (Normif®).

Clinical trial safety committees: the devil's spoon J R Hampton, professor of cardiology. Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK. British Medical Journal - BMJ, 2000 ( 22 January ). Scandal over a clinical trial of marimistat and gemcytabane in the UK provoked this article. Hampton argues that biotech companies must be kept blinded to data during clinical trials on their drugs, even if this is not always in the trial patients' best interest.

Therapeutic vaccines: Uncovering cancer's camouflage Despite past disappointments and some skepticism, scientists hope they can induce an immunologic response to cancer with a therapeutic vaccine. American Medical News, Oct 18, 1999

from Hot Papers in Cancer in The Scientist: March 29, 1999. Ramon Parsons, professor of pathology and medicine, Columbia University Cancer Center, New York comments on J. Li, et al "PTEN, a putative protein tyrosine phosphatase gene mutated in human brain, breast, and prostate cancer, " Science, 275:1943-7, 1997. (Cited in more than 270 papers since publication)

Another Hot Paper in The Scientist October 1997: William Catalona talks about his own paper on Free PSA to reduce unecessary biopsies.

Cancer in Old Age - Is It Adequately Treated? N J Turner, et al, BMJ 1999;319:309-312 ( 31 July ) An interesting article in view of attitudes toward prostate cancer as a disease of old age. "Although more than a third of cancers are diagnosed in people over 75, this group is less extensively investigated and receives less treatment than younger patients...75 year old women and 75 year old men have life expectancies of 11.1 years and 8.5 years respectively....Ageism in healthcare staff, lack of awareness of life expectancy and treatments available, and beliefs and fears about cancer and its treatment in elderly patients and their relatives may be factors in this disparity."

Clinical Applications of Radioimmunoscintography With Prostate-Specific Antibodies for Prostate Cancer Michael J. Manyak, MD

Scientists who do not publish trial results are"unethical" Gavin Yamey BMJ 1999; 319: 939a.