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Query: UMLS:C0376358 (prostate cancer)
 59,338 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Of 478 patients treated at a single institution for prostate cancer, 29 developed spinal cord or cauda equina compression. In 5 patients, spinal cord compression was the first evidence of malignancy. Clinical features were predominantly pain, weakness, sensory and sphincter disturbance. The median duration of symptoms was 2 weeks, although the diagnosis was made rapidly at presentation. Clinical diagnosis correlated well with myelographic findings. Only 1 patient suffered neurological deterioration as a consequence of myelography. The functional outcome was dependent on the ability to walk prior to treatment. The median survival in those who were bedridden following treatment was 6 weeks (range 3.5-13) and 21 weeks (range 7-110+) in those who were ambulant following therapy.
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PMID:Spinal cord compression in prostate cancer. A 10-year experience. 132 Apr 41

Spinal cord or cauda equina compression from prostatic cancer is an oncologic emergency necessitating prompt evaluation and treatment. The strong correlation between pretreatment motor status and treatment outcome underscores the importance of immediate treatment before further neurologic deterioration and before the damage to the spinal cord becomes permanent. Patients with known osseous metastases should be alerted by their clinicians to seek medical help within hours should they develop weakness in an extremity. Prompt MRI of the entire spine should be done prior to treatment. Myelography should be reserved for those patients who cannot undergo a technically adequate or expeditious MRI study. The convenience of MRI relative to myelography allows clinicians to diagnose actual or impending spinal cord compression earlier. High-dose steroids (dexamethasone) should be instituted immediately, and endocrine therapy should be started if not already in use. Ambulatory and moderately paraparetic patients seem best treated initially with radiation alone. Immediate surgical decompression should be used in patients with an expected lifespan of at least 6 months who deteriorate during radiation, who have had previous radiation to the involved site, or who have a potentially correctable unstable spine. In addition, paraplegic patients or severely paraparetic patients with recent neurologic deterioration should be treated with immediate surgical decompression if they are judged reasonably able to tolerate the surgery. These patients should then receive postoperative radiation treatment.
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PMID:Management of spinal cord compression secondary to metastatic prostatic carcinoma. 199 68

The increased incidence of prostatic carcinoma is the result of several factors including increased awareness among clinicians and the public of the significance of carcinoma of the prostate, the aging of the American population, and improvements in diagnostic methods. Most patients in whom prostatic cancer currently is diagnosed are evaluated because of symptoms of bladder outlet obstruction or abnormalities found by digital rectal examination (DRE). Incidentally detected carcinoma of the prostate on simple prostatectomy specimens (transurethral resection or open) occurs in 10-20% of patients. DRE abnormalities, leading to prostatic needle biopsy, explain most of the remaining diagnoses. Rarely, patients have other signs and symptoms, such as azotemia, weakness, anemia, and bone pain. Needle biopsy of the prostate is performed, generally, in the United States; however, aspiration cytologic examination is used widely in Europe. Ultrasound-guided needle biopsy is gaining increasing utility in many centers, all but replacing digitally guided prostate biopsies. The role of transrectal ultrasonography for diagnosis recently has fallen into some disfavor. Prostate-specific antigen assays represent a potentially important diagnostic test for prostatic cancer; however, its utility in this regard continues to be investigated.
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PMID:The diagnosis of prostatic carcinoma. 767 43

We report a 55-year-old man with papilledema and multiple cranial nerve palsies. He was well until 52 years of age when there was an onset of progressive difficulty in initiating urination; he visited the urology service of our hospital where a diagnosis of prostate cancer was made; the cancer was invading the bladder and was metastasizing to lymph nodes and bones. He was treated with oochiectomy and estrogen preparations with some improvement in his symptoms. Two years later, he developed difficulty in urination again, and transurethral resection of the tumor was performed in 1991. In December 1991, he noted tingling and numb sensation in his left face, which had become progressive worse within the next one month, and he developed blepharoptosis and deafness all on the left side. He was admitted to the urology service on February 4, 1992, and a neurological consultation was asked. On physical examination, general findings were unremarkable, except for lymph node enlargements of about 0.5 to 1.0 mm in size in cervical and inguinal regions. On neurologic examination, he was alert with normal mental activities; higher cerebral functions were intact. He had normal vision and visual fields, however, papilledema was present bilaterally; pupils and light reactions were normal. Extraocular muscles were intact on the right side, however, moderate restriction was noted in the left eye in that all the extraocular muscles except for the medial rectus were weak; blepharoptosis was noted on the left; no nystagmus was present. The sensation was diminished in the left face, and left facial paresis of the peripheral type was also noted; the taste sensation was also diminished in the left anterior two thirds of the tongue. He had sensorineural deafness on the left side. The other cranial nerves appeared intact. He walked normally; no weakness or muscle atrophy was noted; muscle tone was normal and no ataxia was observed. Deep reflexes were normally elicited and symmetric; the plantar response was flexor. No meningeal signs were present. Laboratory examination revealed following abnormalities: Hb 7.1 g/dl, platelet 47,000/cmm, WBC3,800/cmm, LDH 950IU/l, PAP232ng/ml (normal less than 1.6), PA2.631ng/ml (normal less than 7.4); a small amount of effusion was noted in the left pleural cavity; cytological examination of the fluid was class V. A cranial CT scan as well as MRI were entirely normal, as was the spinal tap. He was treated with glycerol, however, there was progressive increase in the pleural effusion, and he developed dyspnea; moist rale had become audible in the end of February.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:[A 55-year-old man with prostate cancer, papilledema, and multiple cranial nerve palsies]. 794 37

Neoplastic lumbosacral plexopathy is a frequent and disabling complication in subjects with cancer. Its clinical presentation is characterized by pain, muscle weakness, sensory complaints in one or occasionally both limbs associated with the tumoral symptoms. The presence of autonomic symptoms is less frequent; one of these is the "hot and dry foot". We present two patients, one with prostatic cancer and the other with myxoid liposarcoma, who developed a lumbosacral plexopathy as a manifestation of the extension of the neoplastic process; in both cases there was in addition a clear difference in the temperature of the affected limb. Although infrequent, the "hot and dry foot" it constitutes an early sign of metastatic plexopathy which facilitates the differential diagnosis with preforaminal lumbosciatic radiculopathies.
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PMID:[Neoplastic lumbosacral plexopathy and "hot foot"]. 824 Aug 41

A 70-year-old man with prostatic cancer extending to the urinary bladder underwent transurethral resection of the bladder neck under spinal anesthesia and developed weakness of the proximal lower limbs a few hours after the procedure. The weakness persisted for several months. Because there were no local surgical complications (hematoma, infectious epiduritis, abscess) or bone metastases responsible for nerve root or spinal cord compression, a causal relation between the neurologic deficit and the spinal anesthesia was considered likely. Neurologic deficits are uncommon after spinal anesthesia and can be produced by complications of the surgical procedure (direct nerve injury, hematoma, abscess), arachnoiditis, neurotoxicity of disinfectants or of preservatives added to solutions of anesthetic drugs, or spinal cord ischemia. Precipitating factors for spinal cord ischemia include faulty patient position during the procedure, intraoperative arterial hypotension and injection of vasoconstricting agents.
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PMID:Proximal paraparesis following spinal anesthesia. 881 56

Dear Colleague: I remember, but just barely, what it was like to practice medicine in the first half of this century. My Dad was a general practitioner in a very small farming community in central Illinois, with a hospital of six beds and a trusting clientele. His patients thought he knew how to do everything: deliver babies, set broken bones and take out an appendix. He was an advocate for his patients, not for an HMO or an insurance company. He derived great satisfaction from his practice and was comfortable in this role, up to a point, but knew that he frequently needed the help of specialists from Decatur, St. Louis, and the Mayo Clinic. As his experience and practice evolved, and as medicine itself changed, referrals became a sign of good practice and not an indication of weakness or inadequacy. Some doctors in our town continued to do more than they should have and resisted the trend, and their patients, many with blind faith in their doctor, suffered for it. Clearly, there were economic as well as emotional factors that contributed to this reluctance to ask for help. Clinical oncology is facing much the same situation today. Scientific and economic forces are revolutionizing medicine, but not always in compatible directions. Practice and research have evolved to the point where old patterns of practice are no longer optimal. Few cancer patients can be managed without the input, advice, and even direct involvement of specialists from sister disciplines. Thus, multimodality management of cancer patients is now the norm rather than the exception. At the same time, strong economic forces are dictating a movement in the opposite direction, undermining the strength of traditional academic centers and limiting choices, streamlining patient evaluation, and creating "pathways" to standardize patient management. Who should be setting the course for the cancer patient? We agree that it should not be a clerk at the other end of the phone at the HMO, a computerized practice manual, or even the gatekeeper, who watches his or her capitated bottom line with great nervousness. It should be the physician(s) best able to evaluate the alternatives and communicate these choices to the patient and family. Often it is not possible for a solo physician to make these choices in isolation, particularly when the decisions involve multiple specialties and multimodality therapies. At presentation, many primary cancers now require an integration of the opinion of more than one specialist, and increasingly this integration occurs before surgery. Breast, lung, and prostate cancer, three of our most common diseases, illustrate this point with growing clarity. While less convenient for the doctor, and perhaps less efficient than the "old style" of practice, multimodatity disease center clinics offer significant advantages both to the patient and to the research effort, and are here to stay. Certainly for the payer it is faster and cheaper to have one doctor do it all, but I doubt that the results will be as good. Obviously not all patients need this cooperative approach. It would waste good physicians' time to require that all patients be seen by a radiotherapist, surgeon, and medical oncologist or pediatric oncologist. The specific circumstances may clearly dictate a simple approach and an uncomplicated decision, particularly in dealing with metastatic solid tumors, or at the other extreme, in managing easily resectable, low-risk tumors. However, even here, optimal management of local disease or of potentially resectable metastases may require consideration of an expanded series of options. Thus, all cancer specialists need to be aware of the potential of their colleagues to contribute to disease management. ellipsisWhich brings us to the reason for this journal. The editorial board members of The Oncologist hold the belief that the various subspecialists in oncology should share the same information base and read from the same journal. We believe that cancer specialists should resist the trend to capitulate our responsibilities in disease management to payers, gatekeepers, and hospital administrators. It is up to us to defend the patient's turf and to assure that the patient has an advocate. In order to do so, we will have to be united and fully informed. In this journal, we hope to put the best and latest information on cancer management before our readership, to prepare them for the future, and to do their best as a team for every patient. To this end, we hope to challenge the reader to understand what is new and better, and to let you glimpse the future, not only in terms of research, but also in terms of new team approaches to disease management. We hope to explore how cancer medicine could be and will be practiced as we pass through the economic revolution and return to the future.
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PMID:Back to the Future for Clinical Oncology. 1038 77

Andropause, a syndrome in aging men, consists of physical, sexual, and psychologic symptoms that include weakness, fatigue, reduced muscle and bone mass, impaired hematopoiesis, oligospermia, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, memory impairment, and reduced cognitive function. Free testosterone levels begin to decline at a rate of 1% per year after age 40 years. It is estimated that 20% of men aged 60-80 years have levels below the lower limit of normal. Although the causal relationship between declining testosterone levels and development of andropause symptoms is not firmly established, administration of testosterone to this population resulted in improvements in many areas. Most studies to date focused on physical benefits of testosterone replacement and failed to assess psychologic symptoms rigorously. Preliminary data suggest that therapy may benefit elderly men with new-onset depression. Testosterone administration is not without problems, the most worrisome being the potential for increased prostate cancer risk. Despite this concern, a limited number of studies administered the hormone weekly for up to 2 years, with only mild increases in prostate-specific antigen over control values. Currently, insufficient evidence, primarily regarding psychologic safety and efficacy, exists to warrant general administration of testosterone to elderly hypogonadal men. Further clinical investigations of this therapy in men with low testosterone levels and andropause symptoms are justified and necessary.
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PMID:Testosterone and andropause: the feasibility of testosterone replacement therapy in elderly men. 1045 66

Anthracyclines and cisplatin have been shown separately to have modest activity in prostate cancer. The synergism between anthracyclines and cisplatin, with the lack of overlapping toxicities, led to the conduct of this phase II trial of the combination of epirubicin and cisplatin in hormone-refractory metastatic prostate cancer. Twenty-one evaluable patients with hormone-refractory metastatic prostate cancer received epirubicin 100 mg/m2 followed by cisplatin 80 mg/m2 with prehydration and mannitol diuresis. Epirubicin and cisplatin produced a biochemical response (>50% decrease in tumor marker) in 32% of patients, symptomatic improvement in 38%, and a response in measurable and evaluable disease sites in 14%. Toxicities were mainly hematologic, with 77% and 41% >grade 2 neutropenia and thrombocytopenia, respectively. Greater than grade 2 toxicities were: cardiac (three), renal secondary to sepsis (one), nausea and vomiting (two), weakness (one), mucositis (one), and diarrhea (one). The combination of epirubicin and cisplatin was associated with manageable toxicities in this elderly population; however, antitumor activity was marginal in this disease. Participation in clinical trials should continue to be offered to patients with hormone-refractory metastatic prostate cancer.
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PMID:Combination of epirubicin and cisplatin in hormone-refractory metastatic prostate cancer. 1052 Oct 61

The purpose of this study was to develop a psychometrically reliable and valid questionnaire to assess the disease-specific dimensions of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in the urinary function (UF), bowel function (BF), and sexual function (SF) domains of prostate cancer (PCa) patients treated with radiation therapy. Patients were given a six-page questionnaire using Likert-type questions assessing three HRQOL dimensions during their follow-up visits after completing radiotherapy. Scales created from an earlier study were utilized and tested for reliability and validity. In addition, we assessed the relationship between these dimensions and the degree to which a decreased HRQOL increases the degree to which patients feel bothered about their symptoms. There are two scales within each dimension: BF, Urgency and Daily Living; UF, Urgency and Weakness of Stream; SF, Interest/Satisfaction and Impotence. Internal-consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach's alpha) for the proposed scales range from 0.48 to 0.92, and all item-scale correlations and divergence correlations validate the use of the scales, ranging from 0.49 to 0.89. The validity of these scales is also confirmed by the rising median scores with rising reported levels of patient-perceived "bother." The different dimensions have differing quantitative influences on patients. We have developed a prostate-specific HRQOL instrument that is an adequate and suitable tool for measuring HRQOL along three distinct dimensions for patients who have completed radiotherapy for PCa. Psychometric standards for reliability and validity were met for the proposed scales. Moreover, positive correlations were found between these dimensions and how bothered patients were by their symptoms, suggesting important relationships that should be followed in PCa patients after radiotherapy. Certain scales have strong influences on patient-perceived "bothersomeness" of symptoms, such as loss of control of BF, urgency of BF, urgency of urination, and level of interest/satisfaction in sex. Compared to our earlier study on patients being treated with radiotherapy for PCa, this study produced very similar results. With some modification, the same questionnaire could be used for both groups of patients. Int. J. Cancer (Radiat. Oncol. Invest.) 90, 163-172 (2000).
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PMID:Self-assessed health-related quality of life in men who have completed radiotherapy for prostate cancer: instrument validation and its relation to patient-assessed bother of symptoms. 1090 Apr 29


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