super cool new optical probe for PSMA - this might actually make the surgeons happy!

Targeted, Activatable, In Vivo Fluorescence Imaging of Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) Positive Tumors

interesting clinical data...

Radiation Plus Short-Term Hormone Therapy Improves Survival of Men with Early-Stage Prostate Cancer

In men with intermediate-risk, early stage prostate cancer, short-term treatment to lower male sex hormones given in combination with radiation therapy prolonged overall survival compared with radiation therapy alone, according to an NCI-supported clinical trial. The results of the study were published July 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The trial, which was conducted by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) at 212 centers in the United States and Canada, enrolled nearly 2,000 patients with localized nonmetastatic prostate cancer and with serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels of less than 20 ng/ml. Patients were randomly assigned to treatment with radiation therapy alone or radiation therapy plus short-term (4 months) androgen deprivation therapy (STADT) using drugs that drastically lowered their natural production of testosterone.
The researchers reported a statistically significant improvement in overall survival after 10 years for participants who received STADT plus radiation compared with those who received radiation therapy alone (62 percent versus 57 percent overall survival).
Men who received radiation therapy plus STADT were also less likely than men who received radiation therapy alone to die of prostate cancer (4 percent versus 8 percent). Benefits of the combined treatment were limited mainly to patients with intermediate-risk disease and were not seen for men with low-risk prostate cancer, the researchers said. (Men with intermediate-risk disease have higher Gleason scores, PSA, and clinical stage values than men with low-risk disease.)
The study included nearly 400 black men, who have a higher prostate cancer risk than white men. Benefits from the addition of STADT were similar in white and black men for 10-year overall survival, prostate cancer-specific mortality, and biochemical failure (i.e., a rise in PSA levels after initially lowered levels due to androgen deprivation therapy).
“This study has important significance for clinical care,” said lead author Dr. Christopher U. Jones, of Radiological Associates of Sacramento, CA. “We now have strong scientific evidence about which patients with early-stage prostate cancer benefit from STADT” added to conventional radiation therapy. But the authors also note that new radiotherapy techniques now make it possible to use higher doses of radiation than were used in this study. A successor RTOG study will investigate the value of adding STADT in men with intermediate-risk disease treated with these new radiation methods. 

Jeff's poster at the NE AUA in October

Poster47.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Tet Proteins Can Convert 5-Methylcytosine to 5-Formylcytosine and 5-Carboxylcytosine

Tet Proteins Can Convert 5-Methylcytosine to 5-Formylcytosine and 5-Carboxylcytosine

cool papers to read....

OK, so I am always finding papers that people who are interested in our lab's research might like to read - from now on, I'm going to post them here and you can decide for yourself if you like them...here's one from today - backing up our's and the Bacich's lab's work on folic acid and prostate carcinogenesis --

Petersen et al 2011


if you read it and you think of any comments, please make them so I don't feel all charlie sheenish about blogging...