What you can do
It is obvious that if you are worried about the possibility of PCa, knowing that PSA tests are a waste of time and money, you have a DCE-MRI (Dynamic Contrast Enhanced – Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in Sydney (Royal North Shore Private Hospital, St Leonards, has a brand new 3Tesla machine), to confirm ultrasound scans and to check for metastases – about $500; an ultrasound scan by Sean O’Connor, Sunshine Coast (see cost above); or go to New York and have a US$1200 scan by Dr Robert Bard, who has done 7,000 of these to establish the amount of and degree of PCa present. If the scan shows only low blood flow to the cancer (Gleason 6 or below) you consider changing your diet (go see a recently trained nutritionist (see contact details below), adding supplements, get fit, lose some surplus weight, improve your lifestyle, then rescan every 6 months and have a comparison of the amount of blood flow (thus PCa still present), or if there is a lot of blood flow (Gleason 8 or above) = dangerous, growing cancer, you fly on to Germany and have it removed in 2 hyperthermia treatments. Then you have another scan at Sean O’Connor’s clinic, or by Dr Bard, to be comfortable you have no cancer – you must continue the change in diet/lifestyle for the rest of your life, having further scans every time you feel nervous! Remember the cancer you find is a symptom of the disease, so getting rid of the identified cancer still needs treating of the disease – getting your immune system in the best shape since you were a teenager. Read The Natural Prostate Cure, Second Edition: A Practical Guide to Using Diet and Supplements for a Healthy Prostate, Roger Mason.
Roger recommends the testing (blood and saliva) of the following hormones to ensure you are in balance:
Androstenedione
Cortisol
Dehyroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
Estradiol
Estrone
Estriol
Human Growth Factor (HGH)
Insulin
Melatonin
Pregnenolone
Progesterone
Testosterone
Thyroxine (T4) and Triiodothryronine (T3)
To which you should add tests to determine levels of any other supplement you may be taking, such as:
Vitamins B, C, D, K2, Selenium, calcium, magnesium, zinc,establish your essential fatty acids levels, especially the Omega 3:6 ratio, etc.
Keep in mind the lab reference ranges are often set by them after looking at the blood of tens of thousands of people who are by definition unwell. For some ranges the one for you might be just in the middle, or way out at one of the extremities (such as for vitamin D where an ideal level is at, or above the upper reference range), so you should get some other expert assistance (such as from a skilled nutritionist – see below) to decide on your supplementation levels. This also helps overcome the doubts that may exist concerning the efficacy of the brand of supplement you are taking. The nutritionist of course wants you to buy their expensive brand, but others may work as well. The blood/saliva tests should be the ultimate determinate.
Nutritionist – Tabitha McIntosh, Awaken Your Health
Note of warning: Dr Bard has formed a partnership with Drs Futterrer and Sperling who perform a procedure called “MRI-Guided Prostate Laser Ablation, a minimally invasive treatment for prostate tumors that dramatically reduces risk of impotence and incontinence by creating “safety zones” to avoid vital organs directly related to a man’s quality of life. This revolutionary new procedure utilizes detailed prostate images generated from an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to precisely plan the treatment and visualize the tumor ablation (destruction) in real time. Performed on an outpatient basis, the treatment is an effective method to eradicate the primary tumor. The procedure requires no surgery, anesthesia or catheter. Completed in about one hour, the procedure can be repeated if necessary and does not preclude any future prostate therapies.”. If you were in NYC and in a rush this could suit you – visit: www.sperlingprostatecenter.com. This therapy costs about US$35,000, can be done in a day, there is no history of side effects (claimed to be nil), nor whether it is a cure. Therefore, Dr Bard is no longer the independent advisor and supporter of watchful waiting, based on the use of his patented anti oxidants/beta-sitosterol supplements, etc, that he has been for many years.
National Institute of Health says stop: Dr Snuffy Myers advised 8/12/11, that at a Washington, DC, NIH conference, early December, it was revealed that surgery for Gleason 6, or lower actually took more lives than it saved – see below.
Ultrasound address: Dr Sean O’Connor, Coastal Medical Imaging, 724 Nicklin Way, Currimundi, Q 07 5413 5000, [email protected], is trained in prostate ultrasound scans, spent 5 days training with Dr Bard January, 2012 – Sean is a Canadian, trained at Stanford and Toronto Universities. 3 men went to have scans early November 2011. DVDs of the scans were then sent to Dr Bard who compared the scans with his records (of the same 3 men) and is reasonably happy with Dr O’Connor’s work – though he complains his own 18MHz 195 degree model is better than Sean’s 10MHz 145 degree. Since then Sean has spent $100,000 updating his scanner to Bard’s standard.
In the attachment “Prostate cancer Dr Bard.doc” – he presented his report to the JFR 2011 conference, September, in Paris, you will see in the Methods and Results paragraphs that Bard uses a single tissue Gleason grade out of 5, rather than the more usual (average of) 2 tissues = total score out of 10. As you can see that for those with low grade tumour he reports an 87% improvement with an anti-oxidant + vit D diet. You can do much better than that if you are prepared to work on your lifestyle, and full range of supplements as well.
While Bard is not specific, we understand the “non responders … were referred to alternative treatments possibly were sent to see Dr F Douwes at the Klinik St. Georg, Bad Aibling, 45 minute drive south of Munich, visit:
http://www.germancancerclinics.com/st-george-hospital-german-cancer-treatment
Note foot of first page “For localized prostate cancers (those within the prostate gland), St. Georg offers a one week trans-urethral hyperthermia treatment that has a 100% cure rate.” That’s very impressive and stacks up very well relative to the high return rate of PCa after a radical prostatectomy – currently 25% – to say nothing of the dreadful side effects caused by prostatectomies, chemotherapy, radiation, etc. Visit:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/185789.php
Please also visit:
http://www.hyperthermia-centre-hannover.com/en/hyperthermia-prostate.html
Dr Sean O’Connor’s site is:
http://www.coastalxray.com.au/
His scan is a superior and affordable substitute for PSA test – now sidelined by the US Government Authority, following the NIH Conference.
Please read the David Froggatt attachment – he is the first man who has been scanned by Bard to confirm substantial cancer (dx in Sydney as Gleason 9, was told: “…dead in a year.”) followed immediately by hyperthermia at St George then a second confirmation scan by Bard, a week later, that all cancer was removed. All this for E6,000 + air fares. Dr Phil Stricker charges more than $30,000, so this approach is a bargain and the beer that Prof Douwes insists you drink between treatments (to help flush out the dead cancer cells) is good too.
You should consider the new cancer paradigm which is: We have identified a cancer, that’s a symptom of the disease. Let’s leave it alone and treat the cancer by boosting your immune system. For more information on how to treat PCa with a diet change visit Roger Mason’s site: http://www.cancercontrolsociety.com/bio2002/mason.html
Diet: There are many excellent books on appropriate diets to cure cancer (refer to those at the foot of this article). One such diet used by a few members of this organisation is the attachment “Prostate cancer 2010 diet.doc”. After a thorough reading of the recommended texts you will see there is general agreement on what constitutes an anti-cancer diet. It then only remains to lose most of your surplus weight (get down to near your weight when you played sport as a late teenager), avoid stress and negative people as much as possible, exercise 10-20 minutes 3-4 times per week. Stop and smell the daisies, or meditate on how wonder life is now that you are on your way back to a fully functioning immune system. Do things that are delightful, spend time with your family members, do good things for others. An interesting development/side effect reported by some is the disappearance of minor opportunistic skin eruptions such as tinea, jock itch, influenza becomes a 24 hour disease – all because your immune system is in great shape and knocks off the intruders.
It worked for many, with other helpful changes such as substantial reductions in gland size, eg, in the instance of a contributor: “…now only 20ccs (confirmed by Dr O’Connor last August) when it was more than 30ccs when first scanned 3 years ago.” This reduces the pressure on the bladder that otherwise gets you up during the night for a pee.
Chew food down to a fluid state, stop drinking other fluids 20 mins before a meal and for 30 mins after a meal to allow your digestive system to work at full strength – diluting it later is ok, red wine with a meal is ok.
To be confident that you are doing everything to boost your immune system and rid yourself of cancer check your diet and supplements with an expert nutritionist such as:
Tabitha McIntosh, Awaken Your Health, Level 1 101-103 Queen St, Woollahra, NSW, 2025, 0421 921 469, http://www.awakenyourhealth.com.au/contact
Garth Harris, Comprehensive Health, 15 Hill Street, Roseville, NSW, 2069, (02) 9411 2029.
For Active Surveillance that is accurate and will give you peace-of-mind have an ultrasound and DCE-MRI scan every 6 months:
Technical improvements preserve potency after treatment for prostate cancer
by Jill Margo
A new form of highly personalised treatment for prostate cancer is showing promise in preserving potency.
It involves a technical advance designed to preserve the function of the interconnected anatomical parts involved in the complex process of a man having an erection.
As all men are anatomically slightly different, treatment is planned and then carefully tailored for each individual.
According to a review in The Lancet Oncology, this technique preserved erectile function in 80 per cent of men at the five-year follow-up while maintaining excellent cure rates.
‘Nerve-sparing prostatectomy changed that surgery forever for the better, and began as a technical advance report,’ says Professor Patrick ‘McLaughlin, of the University of Michigan.
Most men in the review received internal and external forms of radiation, mapped and delivered using CT and MRI scans.
During surgery for prostate cancer, surgeons usually try to spare the erectile nerves. Although nerve injury is the major cause of erectile dysfunction after surgery, vessel damage is the dominant cause after radiation.
New technique
The new technique has been termed “vessel sparing radiation” by Patrick McLaughlin, a world leader in the promotion of MRI-based planning for radiation to the prostate and he says there is still much room for improvement.
McLaughlin, Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology University of Michigan and Providence Hospital, led the review that he describes as a prospective non-randomised test of a technical advance in therapy.
“I was shocked The Lancet Oncology took this on because it is so technical, but such technical advances are the engine for major change in outcomes. Nerve sparing prostatectomy changed that surgery forever for the better, and began as a technical advance report.”
“I term this realm of research ‘functional anatomy’ when applied to prostate because so many critical functions pass through or near the prostate.”
He says it is the opposite of trying to radiate a cancer in the middle of the liver or lung. “We each have enough lung and liver for two or three people so if we treat the tumour with an extremely high dose that destroys the tumour but also destroys a tiny rim of lung or liver around it, it will never be missed.”
“But the prostate is surrounded by complex functional organs, each with their own tolerance to radiation. You cannot simply ‘take out’ the cancer as we would a tumour in the liver or lung without impacting critical function related to everyday quality of life.”
While cure is the first priority, retaining quality of life is the second and with refined technology he says it is increasingly possible to achieve both.
Functional anatomy approach
Treatment begins by defining a man’s critical functions and structures such as nerves, vessels and sphincters involved in erectile, urinary and rectal function. McLaughlin has made a brief video showing this.
“The benefit of the functional anatomy approach goes well beyond improving sexual function. It has improved urinary and rectal function as well, ” says co-author of the review, Jae Lee, a resident in radiation oncology at the University of Michigan.
“We argue that current rates of side effects and changes after treatment are not fixed and that further potential improvements in function preservation are possible and likely by pursuing this functional anatomy approach,” he says.
For most aspects of treatment planning, MRI is more precise in defining and outlining structures than CT.
McLaughlin says it can be more effective to treat an aggressive cancer with a combination of implanted radiated seeds and external beam radiation.
Some 49 patients were treated with this combination. They had an average age of 63 and had more aggressive disease but started with slightly better sexual function than the older group, treated only with external radiation.
Five years later, 92 per cent of these “younger” men reported they were still able to be sexually active.
“It’s exciting that erectile function can be preserved with the most intense form of combined radiation, “says McLaughlin. Typically such aggressive radiation causes greater erectile dysfunction.
The two forms complement each other. While the beams provide a margin of dose around the prostate, they cannot deliver as high a dose within the prostate. Seeds deliver high dose within but cannot provide the margin around.
By integrating these two, and summing the dose, severe complications are limited while the tumour has benefited from a very high focus dose.
“We found no difference in quality of life for men given aggressive treatment. If you define the functional structures and limit dose to them, you can achieve cure and excellent quality of life,” says another co-author Daniel Spratt, assistant professor at Michigan University.
With standard radiation, erectile function declines continuously over time. With this new technique, the review showed no decline between the second and the fifth year.
Men being treated with hormone therapy had poor function at two years relative to the two-year results in those without hormones.
By five years, however, when the hormones were long over, they had caught up and had equivalent preservation.
MRI key to treatment plan
McLaughlin says MRI can highlight anatomical aspects that could be useful in making a treatment decision.
If a man’s tumour is outside the gland, this would suggest the need for radiation therapy after surgery, if surgery was chosen as primary treatment.
If he has a short urinary sphincter, he would have a higher risk of incontinence with surgery.
For those with slow-growing, non-aggressive cancers, MRI can confirm there is no aggressive cancer present and that active surveillance may be a good choice.
MRI can also reveal more serious cancers not sampled by the biopsy. This can shift treatment to a more aggressive approach.
It’s unlikely anyone in Australia has the methodical program described by this group, says Jeremy Millar, associate professor and director of Radiation Oncology at Alfred Health in Melbourne.
While his team is well aware of McLaughlin’s work, like others in Australia it is limited by the fact that the Medical Benefits Scheme does not cover MRI for planning prostate treatment.
This makes it difficult systematically to use MRI for planning and although local teams do try to spare certain structures, they don’t “see” them all with standard CT scan-based radiation planning.
“The study shows great promise for vessel sparing radiotherapy, says Anthony Lowe, CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.
Importantly, he says it reflects the growing understanding that erectile function is complex, that anatomy can vary from one man to another and this can profoundly affect sexual function after surgery and radiotherapy.
It also demonstrates the importance of MRI in showing anatomical variations and allowing a bespoke rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
“However, there is a subset of men who experience profound erectile dysfunction even with vessel-sparing radiotherapy. Hence, it would appear there is something else we do not yet understand which is important in retaining sexual function.
“The hope is that modern MRI will allow us to find out what that ‘something’ is.”
While commending the push to preserve function and minimise harm, Daniel Moon, Director of Robotic Surgery at Melbourne’s Epworth Healthcare and a consultant urologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, says as the most severe radiation effects generally occur closer to 10 years, he welcomes future publication of this team’s results with larger numbers as the series matures.
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Recommended further reading:
Prostate Cancer Decoded, Robert L Bard
Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers, Blum and Scholz
The Natural Prostate Cure, Roger Mason 2012 update 2012 is now available – the attachment is update 2005 especially see pages 15 and 73 of the later edition
Anticancer, David Servan-Schreiber
How we do Harm, Otis Brawley
Knockout, Interviews with Doctors who are Curing Cancer, Suzanne Somers
Bombshell, Suzanne Somers
The Vitamin D Solution, Michael Holick. The only way to determine your vitamin D level is a blood test. This year, 10% of all blood tests are for this important vitamin. Australian doctors are rapidly learning this fact visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq1t9WqOD-0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfxG7p9U3Kw&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmuacHrIdDc&feature=relmfu
Surviving Prostate Cancer without Surgery, Bradley Hennenfent
Confession of a Kamikaze Cowboy, Dirk Benedict 2005
Australian doctors say stop PSA tests: A group representing Australian general practitioners says the risks of being screened for prostate cancer outweigh the benefits.
In its latest book of preventative health guidelines, the Royal Australian College for GPs advises its members not to recommend prostate cancer screening to patients.
Professor Chris Del Mar from Bond University on the Gold Coast says the process is invasive and can lead to health problems.
“To find out whether you’ve got it involves an involved diagnostic procedures, a biopsy done through the rectum into the prostate,” Professor Del Mar said.
While there’s a 50 per cent chance men over the age of 60 will have the disease, Professor Del Mar says prostate cancer is entirely benign in most cases.
Professor Del Mar says if he had the disease, he would not want to know.
“The chances are – still – that it won’t ever shorten my life,” he said.
He says patients who are tested often develop serious infections, erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence.
Professor Del Mar says he is concerned about public awareness campaigns encouraging men to be screened for prostate cancer.
“There’s a lot of confusion in the minds of GPs and the general public,” he said.
“Screening for prostate cancer ends up doing more harm than good.”
The college has always opposed screening for prostate cancer and says, increasingly, medical literature supports its position.
Visit
https://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=171