Vol. 2, No. 9

September 2003

Jerry Bylander, Editor  jerryby@texoma.net

FEATURE ARTICLES

The Managing Director's Column
To our members and friends.   This month I am continuing a series, based verbatim, on the booklet,  "Speak Up: Help Prevent Errors in Your Care" published by and with the permission of  (c) Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 2003. Reprinted with permission.

Use a hospital, clinic, surgery center, or other type of health care organization that has undergone a rigorous on-site evaluation against established, state-of-the-art quality and safety standards, such as that provided by JCAHO.
  • Ask about the health care organization's experience in treating your type of illness.  How frequently do they perform the procedure you need, and what specialized care do they provide in helping patients get well?
  • If you have more than one hospital or other facility to choose from, ask your doctor which one offers the best care for your condition.
  • Before you leave the hospital or other facility, ask about follow-up care and make sure that you understand all instructions.
  • Go to Quality Check at www.jcaho.org to find out whether your hospital or other health care organization is accredited.
Participate in all decisions about your treatment. You are the center of the
health care team.
  • You and your doctor should agree on exactly what will be done during each step of your care.
  • Know who will be taking care of you, how long the treatment will last, and how you should feel.
  • Understand that more tests or medications may not always be better.  Ask your doctor what a new test or medication is likely to achieve.
  • Keep copies of your medical records from previous hospitalizations and share them with your health care team.  This will give them a more complete picture of your health history.
  • Don't be afraid to seek a second opinion.  If you are unsure about the nature of your illness and the best treatment, consult with one or two additional specialists.  The more information you have about the options available to you, the more confident you will be in the decisions made.
  • Ask to speak with others who have undergone the procedure you are considering.  These individuals can help you prepare for the days and weeks ahead.  They also can tell you what to expect and what worked best for them as they recovered. 
See you at our next meeting in September.

Dr. Jerry Bylander, Managing Director, USToo! Texoma

Back to Top

Next Meeting


"Open" (we have requested an update of  recent trends in chemotherapy for PC)

Date: Tuesday Evening, September 16, 2003
Location:  Wilson N. Jones North Campus Senior Center, south entrance, 3305  Calais Dr.  

6:30 PM - Social & Coffee
7:00 PM - Program

Speaker:    Dr. Larry Barker, Texas Oncology, Sherman Cancer Center and Denison Denison Cancer Center

Program:  We will learn the latest results for the treatment of prostate cancer.  At the end of the program, we will take a few minutes to discuss prostate cancer treatments of interest to you based on members' experience who have had radiation, brachiotomy, or radical prostatectomies.

Speaker:  Dr. Barker is a long time speaker at our meetings, and is well-versed in the latest treatments for prostate cancer.

Back to Top

Last Meeting
Date & Time: Tuesday, May 20,  2003, 7:00 PM
Place: Wilson N. Jones, North Campus
Attendance: approx. 10 attendees


Old Business

None.

New Business

 None.

Program:   "What is Cryotherapy and is it a Therapy for my Prostate Cancer?"

Ewing Cooley,  Arlington,  TX

Speaker:  Mr. Cooley is a prostate cancer survivor who has had cryotherapy.

Program:  Mr. Cooley, who is a representative of Karren Barries cryotherapy group in Arlington, TX described how cryotherapy is performed.  It is much like brachytherapy in the localized introduction of probes to destroy the cancer and also it is accomplished in a few hours.  After the catheter is removed the patient is usually allowed to return to his home. Mr. Cooley  reported an excellent outcome.

The meeting adjourned about 9 PM.

Henri Plunkett, Program Chair/by the Editor

Back to Top

Other Important Events
The Surprise Challenge, The fourth annual Move it For Dad" , benefit for prostate cancer awareness, Sat, October 4, 2003, Sun City Grand Surprise, AZ, $15 registration. More info: www.sw-prostatecancer.com 

National Conference on Prostate Cancer, 2003,  Sponsors, US Too!, FCRE, Prostate Institute of America, Community Memorial Hospital, September 6, 7 & 8, Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center, Burbank, CA, Contact:  www.pcri.org .

Your organization's meetings listed here.  Contact the Editor at jerryby@texoma.net

Back to Top

Editor's Notes

Random thoughts from your editor

What's new in radiation therapy at MD Anderson
News you can use

 What's new in radiation therapy

From a talk by Deborah Kuban,Professor and Chief of the Genitourinary Section 
in Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson at the Anderson Network's Patient and Caregivers
Conference, September 5, 2003.
  • Dose, dose, and more dose.  Through the use of IMRT machines it is possible to increase the days of radiation from 38 to 42.
  • Tests are being run for 30 day longer irradiation vs. 42.  One test patient at the meeting reported no adverse effects.
  • Reduction of CT scan time by use of 8 beams.  Needed to determine location of prostate between days since prostate moves.  Also better imaging of the cancer is being achieved by change to MRI.
  • MRS (Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy) shows promise for analyzing the cancer spectrum and doing chemical analysis.  It is expected that this technique will allow the therapist to follow the reduction in the cancer.
  • A CT scanner is being added to the radiation therapy room.
  • A proton accelerator will be on line by 2006.  This machine allows more energy to be delivered to the prostate without as much in the intervening tissue.
  • Androgen deprivation therapy in combination with radiation for T3 cancer is increasing the survival rate over that for radiation alone.  After 3 years the survival for the combination drops from 80% to 40% whereas that for radiation alone is around 20%( if I copied her slide correctly. Ed).
  • Two gene therapy efforts were described.  The tissue microarray is an attempt combine the cancer cell DNA with a normal cell's DNA to reinject the new cells and fool the cancer (if I understood what she said - Ed.).  The second is antisense inhibition.  Example: The Bcl-2 protein can come from a bad gene and acts as brake to prostate cell growth.  I think the idea is to put the complement in a drug.  This procedure is in trials.  My notes aren't clear on this example (which procedure above), but P53 growth factor failure can be added to a retrovirus and use retrovirus gene transfer to repair the defective DNA.  
It seems to me that great progress is being made in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Back to Editor's Notes

News You Can Use

You can find news you can use at the USToo International web site: http://www.ustoo.org/.  Check it out for the latest references.

Back to Editor's Notes

Jerry Bylander - Newsletter Editor

Back to Top