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The Algorithm in the Lab: AI is changing the pathologist job

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An Automated, Pathologist-free Gleason Grade Stratifies Disease-free Interval Comparably to Expert Grading from a Single Out-of-distribution Slide | medRxiv How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing the Way Your Biopsy Is Read Informed Prostate Cancer Support Group The Informed Patient July 2026  |  Educational Newsletter for Prostate Cancer Patients and Families AI tools that grade prostate cancer as well as expert pathologists are winning FDA approval, entering clinical guidelines, and moving toward routine use — and a new preprint study shows they can now do it without a pathologist in the room at all. By the IPCSG Educational Committee  |  Reviewed June 2026 If you have been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the single most important number in your medical record — your Gleason grade — was almost certainly assigned by a pathologist staring through a microscope (or these days, a computer screen) at thin slices of you...

When Your PSA Comes Back:

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Biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy: Where do we stand to? | Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases Understanding Biochemical Recurrence After Prostate Surgery IPCSG Educational Newsletter — Research Digest Series June 2026 • Prepared for the Informed Prostate Cancer Support Group Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)   Rising PSA after a radical prostatectomy — called biochemical recurrence, or BCR — affects up to half of all men within a decade of surgery, but it does not mean the cancer has spread or that the situation is hopeless. The standard treatment, salvage radiotherapy directed at the surgical bed, cures many men, especially when given early at low PSA levels. New data confirm that adding hormone therapy, expanding radiation to the pelvis, and in some high-risk cases using next-generation androgen receptor blockers, can all improve outcomes further. PSMA-PET imaging is a powerful new tool, but at the very low PSA levels at which modern salvage trea...

Behind the White Coat: The Grief Your Oncology Team Carries

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Oncology grief is the price of caring deeply for patients Behind the White Coat: The Grief Your Oncology Team Carries IPCSG Newsletter | Patient & Caregiver Education Series BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):   The doctors, nurses, and staff who care for you through prostate cancer are not detached technicians — research confirms they absorb real, lasting grief from patient suffering and loss, and a majority report symptoms of burnout, with hematology/oncology consistently ranked among the most affected specialties in national surveys. This grief is not a flaw in your care team; multiple studies now show it is the by-product of the same empathy that makes them effective clinicians. Understanding this can deepen the trust between patients and the people caring for them, and points toward concrete steps — for clinicians, institutions, and patients alike — that support a sustainable, compassionate oncology workforce. Most of us, as patients living with advanced prost...

Beyond the Ligand-Binding Domain: jamming the "docking site"

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Promising Treatments for Refractory and Resistant Prostate Cancer - Ramesh Narayanan, PhD, MBA - YouTube A Closer Look at the Next Generation of Androgen-Receptor Drugs IPCSG Newsletter | Patient Education & Advocacy | Prepared for the Informed Prostate Cancer Support Group BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):   A recent "Cancer Patient Lab" webinar featuring Dr. Ramesh Narayanan of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) offered a clear, patient-level tour of why androgen-receptor (AR) drugs eventually stop working — and what researchers are trying to do about it. The featured experimental drug, originally called ONCT-534 and developed by Dr. Narayanan and Professor Duane Miller, targets a part of the AR that current drugs don't touch, which in theory should also disable the AR "splice variants" that drive the most aggressive, treatment-resistant disease. The webinar's tone was upbeat about a "phase one" trial — but it...