TUCC In The News

There is one surefire way many men can stay home and watch March Madness — vasectomies.

Doctor’s offices are crowded this time of year with men who feel this the best time of year to have the procedure.

Jeremy Stelter has three days off from work where all he can do is sit and home and watch college basketball. He recently underwent the surgical procedure purposely scheduled around March Madness.

When considering radiation therapy for prostate cancer, our technology has never been better. Today, radiation oncologists combine sophisticated treatment planning in the form of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) with the precision targeting of image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). IMRT allows us to safely deliver higher radiation doses to the prostate while optimally sparing surrounding normal tissue––namely the bladder and rectum.

This “dose escalation” has been reported in randomized trials to improve cancer control with minimal potential risk. Daily IGRT involves initial placement of three gold markers called fiducials into the prostate. An image is then obtained prior to each treatment utilizing a cone beam CT scan, which ensures a reproducible “target” throughout the treatment course. Generally, outcomes for patients electing to pursue radiation therapy for prostate cancer as the primary treatment are comparable to surgery or radical prostatectomy.

TUCC is currently enrolling patients in three different immunotherapy focused clinical trials. In this interview with Denver's KOA Radio, Lawrence Karsh, M.D., director of the TUCC Clinical Research Department, explains each trial and the enrollment process at the center.

Urothelial Cancer patients are now enrolling into a Phase 2 trial for DN24-02, Dendreon Corporation’s investigational active cellular immunotherapy being evaluated for the treatment of HER2 positive cancer. The multicenter trial called Neu-ACT (NEU Active Cellular immunoTherapy) is expected to enroll approximately 180 patients to evaluate the safety and efficacy of DN24-02 as adjuvant therapy in patients with high risk HER2 positive invasive urothelial carcinoma, including bladder cancer, following surgical resection.

The Porter Robotics Institute (PRI) now offers the latest in advanced surgical robotics available to patients with kidney tumors, allowing surgeons the ability to remove just a portion of the kidney.

Porter Adventist Hospital is among a handful of centers in the country with advanced fluorescence imaging technology, called Firefly, and only the second in the region. St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood also recently implemented the Firefly.

HealthTap is pleased to feature Dr. Jesse Mills, a Premier Medical Expert.  Dr. Mills has had a long and distinguished academic career. He received his MD from University of Iowa, College of Medicine and then completed his Internship and Residency in General Surgery and Urology from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.  Dr. Mills was later awarded a prestigious Fellowship in Male Reproductive Medicine and Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.  He is a active leader in his field, often being sought for his expertise on radio, TV and online.  Dr. Mills is also a decorated physician, having recently been deemed one of Colorado’s Top Urologists in 2011 and speaks four languages- Russian, French, Spanish and English.  Dr. Mills currently practices as a Urologist at The Urology Center of Colorado in Denver.

For two decades, Danny Tomlinson had an annual PSA screening, which is a blood test that measures the amount of a specific protein created by the prostate gland. When he was 61 years-old, the results of that test suddenly changed.

"My PSA had about doubled, and then six months later it had quadrupled. So we did a second biopsy and that one came back positive for prostate cancer," Tomlinson said.

That same PSA screening is now under fire by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which has issued a draft recommendation against PSA testing for all men who do not have symptoms that are highly suspicious for prostate cancer.

More than 16 million men across the world are diagnosed with it and more the 33,000 men have died from the disease in the last year.

YOUR SHOW had a conversation about prostate cancer and a recent recommendation from a government advisory panel that suggests that a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test isn't necessary for most men.

Dr. Richard Augspurger is the Medical Director at the Urology Center of Colorado and answered your questions about prostate cancer.

The US Preventive Services Task Force’s advisement that healthy men of all ages should no longer receive the PSA test is something that should be discussed with trepidation. More than 3,000 men in Colorado will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year. The majority of them will be diagnosed through a PSA test.