Staying at the Forefront of Biomarker-Based Prostate Cancer Treatment

OncLive Chairman,

Mike Hennessy

Biomarkers. It’s a term thrown around quite frequently in the cancer world.

But there are enormous differences between cancer types in the number of biomarkers that have been identified, and in how science is capable, right now, of capitalizing upon them to make a difference in the way patients are diagnosed and treated.

So, what is the status of biomarker-based diagnosis and treatment in prostate cancer?

On OncLive, three renowned experts on this topic—Neal D. Shore, MD, E. David Crawford, MD, and Karen H. Ventii, PhD—answer that question in a comprehensive summary review that we expect will serve, for many months to come, as a quick and thorough reference for urologists in the community setting. Also on this topic, we present a summary of a lively discussion among a panel of urologists, who convened for a recent peer exchange hosted by OncLive TV, on the use of biomarker-based tools as a guide in deciding when active surveillance is appropriate for a man with prostate cancer. Next month, we will follow up with articles on biomarker-based tools in kidney, bladder, and testicular cancers, as well as with thoughts on physician reimbursement for these types of tests.

As you look further through the pages of this month’s issue, you will find an article on a startling problem that has affected urologists: violence at the hands of patients. We report on the facts and advice shared by two members of the urology community in May during a talk at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association.

We are also proud, as we are each time the magazine is published, to share a variety of news capable of affecting the way our readers practice. We give details about the discovery of genes that drive clear-cell renal cell carcinoma; the characteristics that define prostate cancer in younger men; how depression affects outcomes in men with prostate cancer; the effect of doctor perspectives on treatment decisions in prostate cancer; the positive outcomes associated with adding sipuleucel-T to ADT or enzalutamide; the potential of the commonly used chemotherapy docetaxel to cause intoxication; and the latest thoughts on when best to use radium-223 in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Columns written by physicians include a piece by Jonathan D. Tward, MD, PhD, challenging death as an endpoint in trials of drugs or screening tactics for prostate cancer; another by Robert Svatek, MD, MSCI, on boosting response to bladder cancer immunotherapy; and a thought-provoking look at “Life After Obamacare” by one of our magazine’s advisory board members, Kevin R. Loughlin, MD, MBA, of Harvard Medical School.

We also have a Q/A in which Mack Roach, MD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, addresses practice-changing evidence regarding the use of androgen-deprivation therapy and radiation therapy together in the treatment of prostate cancer.

We hope this website brings you abundant information that you can immediately apply to your practice on a wide variety of relevant topics.

As always, thank you for reading.