TUESDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- The latest update from a European study that has followed men with prostate cancer for more than a decade leaves the debate about the advantages of aggressive treatment versus "watchful waiting" undecided.

The advantage in survival seen for men who underwent surgery to remove the prostate disappeared after 10 years. While deaths attributed to cancer continued to be lower among those having surgery, the overall death rate for both groups was the same, according to the researchers with the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group.

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange have a significantly greater risk of prostate cancer, especially the most aggressive form of the disease, a new study contends.

The findings are the first to connect the now-banned herbicide with this form of cancer, the researchers said.

A new drug called abiraterone may prove to be a breakthrough treatment for aggressive prostate cancer. Scientists say the drug -- which blocks hormones that fuel the cancer -- could potentially treat up to 80 percent of patients with a deadly form of the disease that's resistant to chemotherapy, BBC News reported.

Amgen's experimental bone-loss drug denosumab increased bone density and prevented fractures among clinical trial participants being treated for prostate cancer, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing company research.

The injected drug was evaluated among 1,400 men who were being treated with prostate cancer therapy that blocks male hormones including testosterone, increasing their risk for weakened bones and fractures. Those who took denosumab fractured vertebrae at less than half the rate of those who took a placebo, the newspaper said.

A gene that greatly increases a woman's risk of breast cancer also causes a particularly deadly form of prostate cancer, say Canadian researchers who studied 301 prostate cancer patients. On average, those with the defective BRCA2 gene lived an average of four years after diagnosis. The average survival time for prostate cancer patients is 12 years.

THURSDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- Colon cancer patients with high blood levels of vitamin D boost their survival odds by 48 percent, a new study suggests.

Previous studies have indicated that high levels of vitamin D may reduce the risk of getting colon cancer by 51 percent, although other studies dispute that claim. But until now, no studies have looked at whether vitamin D could improve survival among people who already had the disease.

By Ed Edelson
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Countering common medical theory, a new study finds that radiation therapy may save the lives of many men whose prostate cancer recurs aggressively after surgery.

SUNDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- On Father's Day, as a gift to themselves, all men should ask three key questions about their risk for prostate cancer, says the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC).

The first question:

What could put me at risk for prostate cancer?

Men with a close relative with prostate cancer, like a brother or a father, have twice the normal risk of developing prostate cancer over their lifetime, the NSGC said. The risk increases if the relative was diagnosed at an early age (before age 70). Other risk factors include age, race and diet.

Minimally invasive surgery on prostate cancer patients has mixed results, a new study suggests.

The New York Times reports that a study examining the results of laparoscopic prostate cancer surgery on a sample of 2,702 patients who had undergone the procedure to remove a malignant prostate gland found that there was a 27 percent lower risk of complications immediately after surgery and a shorter hospital stay by an average of almost three days.

By Steven Reinberg
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) -- Men who keep their cholesterol down might also help lower their levels of prostate specific antigen, a protein that can warn of prostate cancer, a new study says.