Archive News
New Building for the Bristol Urological Institute by 2014
Steve Webster, Finance Director of North Bristol NHS Trust announced that “the Trust and partner University of Bristol have begun the second phase of the Learning and Research (L & R) Building programme at Southmead. A planning application has been made to Bristol City Council to extend the existing L & R Building. The four-storey, 3,000m2 extension will accommodate staff and services relocated from Frenchay and facilities currently sited where the second phase of the new hospital will be built. This expanded building will also offer replacement laboratory and office-based research facilities for the University of Bristol as well as accommodation for the Trust's Bristol Urological Institute and the Regional Quality Control laboratory. Building work is expected to start in early 2013 and likely to finish by summer 2014. The completed building will be a terrific resource and further enhance our reputation as a centre of excellence”.
The new building will house the BUI-BioMed microbiology, pathophysiology and measurement laboratories, and will create synergies with technical and scientific resources owned by the University of Bristol. This will facilitate access to a greater range of techniques that will permit the BUI-BioMed to expand its basic and translational research and increase the scope of its technical testing services to industry and other innovators.
For an update on the new hospital development you can visit the North Bristol NHS Trust website.
Scanner helps Bristol Team Lead Way Cancer Research
The delivery of a Veridex Circulating Tumour Cell (CTC) Scanner at the School of Clinical Sciences at Southmead Hospital is providing an exciting opportunity for a team of Bristol scientists and clinicians.
It will enable them to undertake potentially groundbreaking research into what controls cancer tumour cells and causes them to spread around the body.
Using a newly developed test called the CellSearch®CTC test the scanner has the potential to provide the means for more accurate measurement of cancer progression so that appropriate treatments are given.
There are only a handful of CTC scanners in the UK and this is the first scanner to be housed in a research institute based in a South West Hospital. The arrival of the scanner is exciting news for Bristol as it will potentially benefit patients who are getting cancer treatment at Southmead Hospital and the Bristol Haematology and Oncology Centre.
Working in partnership with the two local NHS Trusts the research by scientists and clinicians at the University of the West of England, the University of Bristol, the Bristol Haematology and Oncology Centre and the Bristol Urological Institute has the potential to identify better targeted treatment options for patients in Bristol with advanced cancer.
Who's the best surgeon for your prostate cancer op? [Daily Mail - 2 November 2010]
It's a delicate operation that can leave men impotent and incontinent - so who do the experts turn to?
Around 36,000 men a year are diagnosed with cancer of the prostate, making it the most common male cancer in Britain.
It’s also among the most feared, not least because two of the key measures to tackle it — surgery to remove the prostate (radical prostatectomy) or radiotherapy — can leave men incontinent and impotent.
Nerve-sparing prostatectomy, in which the gland is removed with minimal damage to the nerves which control erections, may be possible when the cancer is low grade and hasn’t spread.
But the downside of this procedure is it reduces the chance of completely clearing the cancer.
‘Some men say forget about the nerves, it’s much more important you take out all of the tumour,’ says Edward Rowe, a urologist at Southmead Hospital, Bristol.
‘Other men say their quality of life will be zero if they lose their potency and they would rather be dead than that.’
Men in Britain are not routinely screened for prostate cancer, partly because the technique for doing this, the PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood test, which measures the protein produced by the prostate, is unreliable.
Some men with prostate cancer don’t have a raised PSA level, and two-thirds of men with a raised PSA don’t have prostate cancer — just an infection or an enlarged prostate, which comes with ageing.
Prostate cancers are slow growing, and the lack of scientific consensus in this field means it can be difficult for surgeons to decide whether to operate or simply regularly monitor the patient until it grows.
This paves the way for both over-treatment and under-treatment — with some men having radical treatment for a prostate cancer that’s never going to harm them and others under-treated for a more aggressive disease because the surgery is difficult and the results might be worse than the cancer itself.
Radical prostatectomy can be carried out by open surgery or by keyhole — either by a surgeon directly, or a surgeon using robotic technology.
Although consultants will argue in favour of the benefits of their own chosen method, there is no scientific evidence, as yet, to prove the superiority of one approach over another.
So where surgery is recommended, finding a top-notch surgeon is more important than being swayed by technology — or the lack of it.
So what’s the surest way of lining up the country’s best surgeons? We’ve hunted down the UK’s top ten outstanding prostate cancer surgeons.
We’ve turned the spotlight on urologists, even though radiologists and oncologists play an equally important role in prostate cancer treatment. This is because urologists are the treatment gatekeepers who make the diagnoses and will then refer patients to other specialists where necessary.
We felt those best placed to tip the top would be urologists themselves, so we canvassed 40 of them from around the country and asked: ‘If your own nearest and dearest required prostate cancer surgery, to whom would you refer them and why?’ Each nominated five fellow surgeons.
Those who got the most votes from their peers made it into the Daily Mail’s top ranking.
This is a guide, not a scientific study — there are many superb and highly skilled urologists all over the country who didn’t make it into our top ten, but who spend every day of their working lives giving their patients the best possible odds of beating their cancer.
All of those in our listing work in the NHS, although the majority do private work as well.
Prostate Cancer latest US drug approvals
In 2010, the FDA approved the chemotherapy drug cabazitaxel (Jevtana) for patients whose condition has worsened during or after treatment with docetaxel. Chemotherapy is sometimes recommended for men with prostate cancer that does not respond to hormone therapy.
In 2010, the FDA approved the first prostate cancer “vaccine” for select men with advanced prostate cancer. Sipuleucel-T (Provange) uses a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer. In clinical trials, it extended survival by about 4 months.
Androgen deprivation therapy (also called hormone therapy) is one of the treatment options (along with active surveillance, surgery, and radiation therapy) for men with prostate cancer. Hormone therapy commonly uses drugs called luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) agonists. These drugs have been associated with possible increased risk for diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and sudden death.
In 2010, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Urological Association issued a joint guideline recommending that men who receive hormone therapy have regular visits with their doctors to monitor their blood pressure, blood sugar (glucose), and cholesterol (lipid) levels.
High risk prostate cancer death 'cut with radiation'
Deaths from high-risk prostate cancer can be cut by giving men radiation treatment as well as hormonal therapy, research by Cardiff University has shown.
A trial of 1,200 men with prostate cancer spread from where it started to nearby tissue or lymph nodes found additional radiotherapy cut deaths by 43%. All the men received hormone therapy.
The interim results were presented to a cancer experts conference in Liverpool.
The trial found that the additional radiotherapy cut deaths by 43% after seven years.
Early results showed that 79% of men who had hormone therapy alone were alive seven years later compared with 90% who received radiotherapy and hormone drugs.
Hormone treatments can work well but some men stop responding to them after a few years.
Prof Mason said he hoped men would be offered radiotherapy following the findings of his research.
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Trial leader Prof Malcolm Mason called the findings "exciting". |
The results follow a trial over 11 years.
Prof Mason added: "These exciting results clearly show how radiotherapy increases survival for men with this type of prostate cancer.
"Currently, we estimate that around 40% of men like those in the trial are given radiotherapy in the UK, and we hope that, thanks to these results, more men will now be offered this important option."
The men who received radiotherapy were treated five days a week for between six or seven weeks as outpatients.
Some men suffered "mild" side effects including discomfort, the need to urinate frequently or diarrhoea.
However, radiotherapy has long-term effects that may not be seen for three or four years, including a risk of impotency.
But charity Cancer Research UK, ahead of the National Cancer Research Institute conference, welcomed the findings.
Kate Law, director of clinical research at Cancer Research UK, said: "This trial offers fresh hope to thousands of men with prostate cancer, preventing hundreds of deaths every year.
"Radiotherapy is sometimes an overlooked form of treatment, but this trial shows how vital it can be."
Page updated: 21 October, 2012