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Proton therapy is a promising but costly technology for the treatment of prostate cancer. Although compelling evidence has shown proton therapy to be safe and effective for cancer treatment, comparative randomized data are needed to clarify its role and value in future practice.
Measuring the cost and comparative effectiveness of different treatments for localized prostate cancer is difficult. A recent paper by Cooperberg and colleagues has attempted to address this difficulty, but, although some valuable insights are obtained through their skillful work, its applicability is limited.
10-year data from the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer trial 22911 have been published, reigniting the debate regarding postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer. These data show that adjuvant radiotherapy significantly improves biochemical progression-free survival and local control compared with a 'wait-and-see' policy, supporting the 5-year follow-up data.
The progression of prostate cancer to castration-resistant disease usually marks the transition of patient care from urologist to medical oncologist. The demonstration that a new generation of oral agents, such as abiraterone acetate, can be administered before chemotherapy suggests the dynamics of advanced prostate cancer care are about to change.
Advances in ultrasonography technology have produced new innovative techniques in imaging of the scrotum that can be useful when diagnosing diseases and disorders of the testicles. Consequently, the standard approach to accurate diagnosis should rely on multiparametric ultrasonography techniques, rather than just one or two techniques in isolation.
In this Review, Geary and colleagues discuss the potential mechanisms of action for all prostate cancer vaccines that trigger cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte-mediated responses and have reached clinical trials. They consider ways in which key immune events are likely to affect the efficacy of each vaccine and consider how information regarding these potential mechanisms can be exploited for future combinatorial treatments.
In this Review, Weiser and colleagues outline a number of parameters for evaluating the quality of surgical care and explore some systems-based interventions that aim to improve teamwork, communication, and the evaluation of safety and outcomes, with particular focus on urological procedures.
In this Review, the authors describe artificial neural networks (ANNs), which are mathematical tools used in medicine for cancer diagnosis, staging and recurrence prediction. With an emphasis on prostate cancer, they detail how ANNs offer a number of advantages as clinical decision-making tools, and describe the strengths and weaknesses of various models and input parameters.
