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Before and After Surgery: The PROTEUS Trial May Rewrite How We Treat High-Risk Prostate Cancer

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First Look at PROTEUS Results: Dr. Monty Pal on ASCO26 Plenary Research - YouTube A landmark Phase 3 study shows that adding a powerful hormone blocker around the time of surgery dramatically reduces the chance of cancer spreading — and may change a treatment paradigm that has stood for more than a century. IPCSG Newsletter  |  June 2026  |  Prepared for the Informed Prostate Cancer Support Group ▶ Key Takeaways for Patients The PROTEUS trial tested adding apalutamide (Erleada®) plus standard hormone therapy for six months before and six months after radical prostatectomy in men with high-risk or locally advanced prostate cancer. Men receiving apalutamide were nine times more likely to have little or no cancer remaining in the prostate at surgery. The combination reduced the risk of cancer spreading (metastasis) or death by 20% over follow-up. Time before needing any further treatment was extended by more than 33 months compared to hormone therapy a...
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The UK's NHS could do much better - and so could the US

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Interactive Artifact What an Optimised NHS Prostate Cancer Strategy Would Actually Look Like Informed Prostate Cancer Support Group  |  IPCSG Special Report  ·  May 28, 2026 Companion Analysis  ·  Follows: "UK Narrows Prostate Cancer Screening to a Few Thousand Men" (IPCSG, May 28, 2026) Policy Analysis   The UK's new screening programme will reach a few thousand men per year while 55,000 are diagnosed annually. The tools to do far better — polygenic risk scoring, multi-marker blood tests, precision MRI, and consistent active surveillance — already exist, are largely within NICE approvals, and are supported by compelling trial evidence. Here is the architecture of what an evidence-optimised system would build right now.    IPCSG Newsletter Staff   ·  Sources: NEJM, Lancet Oncology, ASCO Post, ICR, Science Media Centre, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Ur...
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UK Narrows Prostate Cancer Screening to "A Few Thousand" Men —

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Prostate cancer screening only for "a few thousand" at risk men Informed Prostate Cancer Support Group  |  IPCSG Special Report  ·  May 28, 2026 International Screening Update What the Decision Means and Why It Matters The UK National Screening Committee has issued its final recommendation: only men aged 45–61 with a confirmed pathogenic BRCA2 variant and a qualifying family cancer history will be offered prostate cancer screening. For the rest — including Black men who face double the population risk — the door remains closed, pending trial results still years away. Here is the full picture.    IPCSG Newsletter Staff   ·  Sources: UK NSC, Cancer Research UK, ICR, Prostate Cancer UK, Science Media Centre, NEJM, PubMed, GOV.UK Key Points for Patients The UK now has its first-ever prostate cancer screening programme — but only for men aged 45–61 with a pathogeni...
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Beyond satisfaction scores: quantifying communication quality in oncology care | Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases

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Beyond satisfaction scores: quantifying communication quality in oncology care | Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases The Persuasion Problem: Why Your Urologist Won't Quantify Side Effects How financial incentives and training bias distort shared decision-making in prostate cancer care Bottom Line Up Front:   Recent research shows that physicians systematically use persuasive language and selective omission of data to steer patients toward treatments aligned with their own specialty and financial incentives. When a urologist won't give you precise numbers on side effects, that's not because the data doesn't exist—it's because precision would undermine the recommendation. This is documented, measurable, and strategy-resistant. Patients need to recognize it and counter it. The Evidence: Persuasive Language Is Real and Documented In 2024, Naser-Tavakolian and colleagues at Cedars-Sinai published an analysis of how physicians communi...
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