Dr. Gordon’s Comments:
This article can be helpful if you understand how I would use PSA information and what I believe active surveillance should entail. I want to keep my patients away from needless, often repeated, biopsies and other far too aggressive prostate treatments.
I find it useful, as usually we can at least modulate PSA doubling time, as the pomegranate study proved. So I like my patients to have something that helps them focus on staying healthy but to me that is total health not just excess focus on the prostate but even looking at bone density and coronary calcification and/or premature aging etc.
Tests help me to reward patients who follow my FIGHT program, as everything I test should be able to improve overtime even though the patients is getting older. I find patients with some significant health concern that can be retested over time and show subsequent improvement in those repeated tests will really do what I consider to be an adequate LIFELONG health and life style program, as called for with my FIGHT program working on all levels.
At most 12% of all prostate cancers seem to ever become significant threats to the patient’s long term survival. As we age eventually everyone has some prostate cancer, so how to protect the patients so they are not suddenly confronted with metastatic disease and do this without the nonsense of up to eight repeated biopsies over the course of a few years, is where the ART of medicine comes in.
We know that Dr Black at Dartmouth years ago proved that by age 60, autopsies find cancer of the prostate in 60% of all subjects tested. So with elevated PSA test, I like to do other tests such as caprofile.net for $371, as that picks up many cancers and tells you who has elevated anaerobic metabolism going on (Warburg Nobel prize, cancer is anaerobic). Also I like to consider the concept we learn from the Kobayashi Cancer Panel of tests, where he proved that ALL early cancers suggested by tumor tests would normalize with adequate life style based programs. So our goal is to put a program together that will in time invariably lead to normalization of those tests.
The developer of the PSA test now claims it never was intended as a cancer test, but more to detect chronic prostatitis so I believe that infection is a key part of my fIght program and things like local hyperthermia and ACS 200 silver etc should help us overcome this
condition.
But I use any abnormal test as a motivator to improve health and expect all future retesting to improve everything from testosterone levels to liver function tests and levels of toxins in the body. So it comes down to my interpretation of the term active surveillance where I am focused on Anti-aging medicine and helping my patients reach their maximum intended useful lifespan. Any tests that are not optimal I use to encourage patients to adopt any and all modalities including Heparin, Vitamin C, Wobenzym, Quercetin, Ozone/Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation, meditation, diet changes, etc.
I like to do broader testing and I can usually find some other areas in my PSA patient’s work-up needing optimization, i.e. blood flow to heart, brain function, memory, exercise tolerance, glucose control etc. So, for me, PSA testing and follow up fits into a broad program of monitoring, as many things as patients are willing to look at and devising a program for my patients that will optimize everything always. We know that a few cases of prostate cancer can seem very aggressive and lead the patient to their demise. If patients knew the truth however that according to oncology literature in USA, stage 4 cancers have only a 2.1% five year survival with mainstream treatment, but using alternative approaches Doctor Forsythe, an oncologist in Reno, has documented to FDA who went through all his records that he has 500 stage 4 cancer patients that includes all types of cancer – with his 5 year survival being 37.5%.
And, in my experience, with stage 4 wide spread ca of the prostate, it is the easiest one of all to treat for severe widespread mets. I like things like hyperthermia but just using IV Vitamin C and anticancer plants like Laetrile and Enzymes like Wobenzym that I used in my running the Manner Clinic in Tijuana I have always found prostate cancer to be very responsive to non drug therapy at any stage.
Meantime, since with my current age of 75, I should expect that I have a 75% probability of having it, yet the life style program I follow to deal with all of my other issues, like CV disease etc, my prostate is well controlled. Thus always remember my FIGHT program. I am convinced 99% of all patients will do well on this plus non toxic plant based support particularly if we begin my program before we have detectable lump/bump disease or wide-spread mets.
Please note the conclusion of this new research paper that can save thousands of patients who are now hapless victims of overaggressive prostate treatments widely given in our country all too often I fear for the benefit of the treating doctor, not for the patient.
“This means that many men with low-risk prostate cancer are receiving aggressive cancer treatment even though active surveillance may be a safer and acceptable alternative for some men with PSA levels below 10 ng/mL.1”
Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com
Link: http://www.nhiondemand.com/HSJArticle.aspx?id=913&utm_source=NHI+OnDemand+Newsletter+List&utm_campaign=a61eed16f7-HSJ_Sep30_2010&utm_medium=email
Excerpt:
Date: 9/28/2010
Over Diagnosis and Overtreatment for Prostate Cancer.
Source: Archives of Internal Medicine
Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize (spread) from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause difficulty urinating, urinary retention, problems during sexual intercourse, or erectile dysfunction. Other symptoms can potentially develop during later stages of the disease such as fatigue, nausea, weakness, back pain, swollen lymph nodes, discomfort in the perineum, hip pain, or weight loss. Blood may be present in the urine. Most prostatic cancers are detected in asymptomatic men who have an elevated PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) level or a nodular or enlarged prostate at the time of examination.
Prostate cancer screening is utilized to detect the tumor while it is localized in the prostate and is most easily and successfully treated. Biopsy of the prostate is essential for establishing the diagnosis and is indicated when an abnormality is detected by palpation or elevated PSA.
Recent data suggests that prostate cancer screening may lead to over treatment in men who do not actually need any cancer treatment. The study reviewed information from 123,934 men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Researchers found that 14 percent had PSA values below 4 ng/mL, 73.5 percent were between 4.1 and 20 ng/mL and 12.5 percent had levels above 20 ng/mL. Men with screen-detected prostate cancer and PSA values less than 4 ng/mL were 1.49 and 1.39 times more likely to receive radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy, respectively, and were less likely to have high-grade disease than men who had non-screen-detected prostate cancer. This means that many men with low-risk prostate cancer are receiving aggressive cancer treatment even though active surveillance may be a safer and acceptable alternative for some men with PSA levels below 10 ng/mL.1
1 Shao YH, Albertsen PC, Roberts CB, et al. Risk profiles and treatment patterns among men diagnosed as having prostate cancer and a prostate-specific antigen level below 4.0 ng/ml. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(14);1256-61.
