Cancer ABCs From Surviving To Thriving - How to Thrive with Cancer

When you are first diagnosed with cancer, when the doctor says to you have cancer, you are likely to have many different responses. Among these first possible responses are fear, apprehension, disbelief, sadness, anger, dread, or even denial. Any and all of these reactions are reasonable and normal.

The question is how do you chose to deal with these feelings?  

Everyone's cancer is different and how we as individuals deal with o...

Joel Nowak and Shane Norris discuss his unusual Covid Pandemic Journey with a new prostate cancer diagnosis.  Shane, a well-respected music producer and gig worker, joined with other New Orleans artists to raise funds for out-of-work musicians.  As he began to create a fund raising vehicle he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  

Shane shares the experience he had navigating the Covid pandemic as he searched for the prostate cancer ...

Radiopharmaceutical scans (PETS) are a vital tool in our fight against cancer. 

These special PET scans allow us to make earlier cancer diagnoses while a cancer is still contained in the original organ.   With an earlier diagnosis, treatments can still stop the cancer before it is able to move to other parts of the body, or become metastatic.  

These special scans also are our best tools to evaluate whether our treatments are working...

Joel T Nowak from Cancer ABCs discusses with Dr. Rana McKay, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California in San Diego,  her recently published article that analysizes real world data that demonstrates that Provenge (sipuleucel-T), an immune therapy for castrate  resistant metastatic prostate cancer (mCRPC), can reduce the risk of death over and above the newer  hormone treatments that...

One of the most common question men with prostate cancer ask us at Cancer ABCs is if they can stop their hormone therapy (ADT) when they go on a second generation hormone treatment like abiraterone (Zytiga).

A recent analysis of the SPARE Trial points us in the direction that it might be possible to halt ADT when you are taking Zytiga.  SPARE was a small trial which needs to be replicated by a larger trial before we can gain confide...

Men who have a local prostate cancer recurrence, or their PSA starts increasing, after having prostate cancer surgery (a radical prostatectomy), the treatment of choice is considered salvage radiotherapy (SRT). In the post prostatectomy setting, SRT may impose significant risks and complications.

Potential complications or side effects can include incontinence, bladder neck contracture, bladder and bowel symptoms, needing secondary ...

Genetic testing plays a major role in identifying an individual's risk for developing cancer as well as the management of many different cancers, including prostate cancer.  It's important that we patients know the limits of a key federal privacy law that is supposed to protect us when we do have a genetic test.

In June, 2020, there was a  new set of recommendations on the use of genetic testing published by the Internationa...

Written Transcript at
 https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-racial-disparities-in-prostate-cancer-clinical-trials

Joel T Nowak interviews Emily Rencsok, an MD/PhD student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  They discuss the findings of a recent publication which she was the first author that analyzed 59 prostate cancer clinical trials based in North America and Europe.

Overall, Rencsok and colleagues looked at 72 globa...

Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-pc-treatment-in-the-covid19-era

Joel Nowak discusses how one doctor, Dr. Emmanuel Antonarakis from The Johns Hopkins Hospital has modified his prostate cancer treatments in the era of the coronavirus.  Joel shares how Dr. Antonarakis has moved to using telemedicine when possible, the changes he has made for his patients on hormone therapy (ADT), and how he  is using chemoth...

Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-provengesurvivaladvantage

Dr. Tim Richardson talks with Joel Nowak talk about the real survival advantages that the immunotherapy known as Provenge (sipuleucel-T) offers to men, especially men who get the therapy while their PSA is low (Schellhammer data) and men with an African-American background.  

Along the way, they also talk about what is immunotherapy, how it works, h...

Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-urinary-incontinence-post-radical-prostatectomy-solutions

Joel Nowak discusses why men who have a radical prostatectomy, or the surgical removal of their prostate gland to treat prostate cancer often suffer urinary incontinence.  Urinary incontinence negatively affects a man's quality of life so it is important that men know about their options so they can discuss them ...

Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-oncotype-prostate-sore-and-active-surveillance

Mr. Anson Tharayanil, a Medical Science Liaison from Genomic Health rejoins Joel Nowak from Cancer ABCs to talk about another test for men diagnosed with low or favorable medium risk prostate cancer, the Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score.

The test should be used along side the traditional measures we use like biopsy Gleason Gra...

Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-using-the-genomic-health-arv-7-test-when-you-arev-aking-xtandi-zytiga-or-erleada

In this podcast Anson Tharayanil, a Meical Science Liaison from Genomic Health, Inc. talks with Joel Nowak about their test, the Oncotype DX ARV-7 Nucleus Detect Test for men with castrate resistant metastatic prostate cancer.  

The test is used to determine if the second line hormone therapies ...

Dr. Ken Pienta from The Johns Hopkins Hospital explains all about metastatic prostate Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript-dr-ken-pienta-discusses-what-is-metastatic-prostate-cancercancer and how it spreads or metastasizes.  

He Includes in his discussion how prostate cancer is staged, how cancer migrates from the prostate gland to distant sites that can then develop into tumors.  In this discussion He clarifi...

Written Transcript at:
https://www.cancerabcs.org/transcript

Mark Hall was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer with a PSA of 4,400 and a Gleason Score of 8.  Despite these terrible numbers he has been thriving the last four years with an undetectable PSA and a fantastic quality of life!

Mark shares his journey, where under the guidance of Dr. Charles (Snuffy) Meyers he went through a heavy regime of hormone therapy treatments as...

Hearing that someone you know or a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer is often scary.  Not only are you concerned about their health, but many of us are not sure how to speak with them or offer them help.  

We want to reach out to them, but we don't  know if we should talk about their cancer.  We also don't know how we can help them.  

Joel T. Nowak, a five time Cancer Thriver offers some insights into how you can know ...

Joel T Nowak from Cancer ABCs along with oncology nurse Fran Fanning (co-owner of Heavenly Hash) participated in a prostate cancer patient conference sponsored by Prostate Cancer International.  The conference was held in Ft. Meyers Florida in March of 2019.

They offered a live presentation that described how hormone therapy worked, how it is achieved, its side effects as well as some "grassroots" methods used by men to cont...

Joel Nowak from Cancer ABCs interviews Michael Singer, a male breast cancer thriver. Michael, diagnosed at age 50, shares his journey and his advocacy as a man with breast cancer. 

Three years before learning that he had breast cancer his sister, with whom he lived, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She succumbed to the disease one year after receiving the diagnosis. So, when Michael learned about his diagnosis, he assume...

Joel Nowak talks with Dr. Corrie Painter. who is an eight-year Cancer Thriver with Angiosarcoma, a very rare and lethal cancer of the interior of the blood vessels. 

Dr. Painter is a researcher with the Broad Institute of MIT and Dana Farber. She is instrumental in designing and executing the Broad’s research project, The Angiosarcoma Project as well as their Metastatic Breast and Metastatic Prostate Cancer Projects. 

Dr. Painter sha...