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Health benefits company Humana, Inc. has reached an agreement with representatives of more than 700,000 physicians to settle a nationwide class action suit that has been pending in U.S. District Court in Miami for more than 6 years.

Men who have a yearly PSA test are nearly three times less likely to die from prostate cancer than those who don't have an annual screening, according to a presentation at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting in Denver.

Z?rich Switzerland--Botulinum toxin A (Botox) may be an effective, safe alternative treatment option in patients experiencing overactive bladder refractory to more standard treatments, according to a study performed at the Universit?tsspital Z?rich and Kantonsspital Luzern, Switzerland.

San Antonio--Targeting the pudendal nerve directly with neuromodulation rather than the third sacral nerve root might produce better results for patients with interstitial cystitis.

Minnetonka, MN--The Halo kidney stone basket from Sacred Heart Medical, Inc. features improved basket symmetry and stability to ensure complete capture and retrieval of small stones and fragments, as well as a 1.5F diameter sheath to permit simultaneous use of laser fiber for intracorporeal lithotripsy without compromising irrigation or visibility.

New Orleans--Oral and topical agents are well established as effective nonsurgical treatments for Peyronie's disease. Judging by the results of a recent multicenter study, intralesional therapy will soon join them on that list.

Durham, NC--A study estimating the dispensation rate of interacting medications to an outpatient population found that while less than .05% of patients received co-prescriptions for medications that could potentially cause serious adverse effects, about half of these were for sildenafil citrate (Viagra) and one of two different nitrates.

Montreal--Cystoscopy and cytology are the default gold standards for surveillance of recurrence and progression of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder, but the accuracy of those standards may be tarnished by subtle-to-significant variations in procedural steps that begin with specimen collection and conclude with analysis and reporting of findings.

Berlin--5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) was introduced about 10 years ago as a means of identifying tumor tissue in the bladder by causing it to fluoresce under the appropriate light. The question that the technology raised was whether the new lighting system under which the tumors and suspicious lesions were removed led to a reduction in the progression and recurrence of bladder tumors.

Nashville, TN--Fluorescence in situ hybridization, or FISH (UroVysion, Vysis Inc., Downers Grove, IL) has a >80% sensitivity and a >90% specificity for detecting urothelial carcinoma (UC) in patients with a history of UC, but that sensitivity and specificity comes at a price. The test can be expensive when used to routinely monitor patients at risk for recurrence of UC and for evaluating those with hematuria, researchers say.

Mansoura, Egypt--Acucise endopyelotomy is no longer employed at the Mansoura University Urology and Nephrology Center in Mansoura, Egypt. Instead, urologists there have switched to laser endopyelotomy.

St. Louis--Little difference appears to exist between pure laparoscopy and hand-assisted laparoscopic radical nephrectomy in terms of immediate postoperative outcomes, according to what may be the first prospective, randomized trial comparing the two techniques.

Indianapolis--For urologists who are less than happy with the current options for performing intracorporeal lithotripsy, researchers from one of the country's highest-volume stone centers have some good news. A novel, dual-probe lithotriptor appears to offer the best features of both pneumatic and ultrasonic devices, and provides a significantly shorter penetration time than a combination pneumatic-ultrasonic device, in vitro research data show.

New York--Preliminary results from the first two U.S. patients to undergo surgery to create a somatic-autonomic reflex pathway for micturition suggest the procedure may be an effective, safe treatment for neurogenic bladder secondary to spinal cord injury, report urologists from New York University.

Z?rich Switzerland--Botulinum toxin A (Botox) may be an effective, safe alternative treatment option in patients experiencing overactive bladder refractory to more standard treatments, according to a study performed at the Universit?tsspital Z?rich and Kantonsspital Luzern, Switzerland.

Dallas--Interim data from a long-term study under way at five U.S. centers offer hope of enhanced relief for men with BPH.

Vancouver, British Columbia--PCA3, the gene most over-expressed by prostate cancer, is a promising urine marker for the disease. Moreover, the PCA3 gene test appears to offer much greater cancer specificity than the PSA test, which is presently the best screening test available. Most PSA elevations seen today are actually caused by BPH, not cancer, which is a major limitation with PSA testing for prostate cancer. However, according to researchers at Gen-Probe in San Diego, the PCA3 gene assay, which is currently under development, may provide a test that is cancer-specific, not just "prostate-specific."

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada--The sensitivity of several MRI techniques in diagnosing prostate cancer is problematic, but two techniques, diffusion-weighted (DW) and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI, appear promising.

Boston--Men with localized prostate cancer have a lower risk of biochemical failure after receiving high-dose radiation versus conventional-dose conformal radiation. Moreover, the benefit from the higher-dose treatment, using a modern approach to radiation delivery, comes without an increase in serious urinary or rectal morbidity, according to a new study.

Scottsdale, AZ--Injecting botulinum toxin A (Botox) into the prostate gland shows potential for providing a quick, easy, and safe treatment option for men with lower urinary tract symptoms related to BPH, but two small studies—one from the United States and Chile, and one from Italy—provided equivocal results regarding the efficacy of this investigational approach. While the Italian data showed significant decreases in International Prostate Symptom Score and prostate size with botulinum toxin, U.S. researchers were unable to duplicate these results. Both studies were presented at the AUA annual meeting in San Antonio.

Increasingly, physicians look to the use of biomarkers as precursors of various cancers, including bladder cancer, and rely on them to some degree to guide diagnosis and treatment decisions. However, the science of biomarkers as diagnostics is still in its infancy, and their clinical use has some limitations. In this interview, Michael A. O'Donnell, MD, discusses developments in marker tests and how they compare with cystoscopy and cytology in the diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Rochester, NY--Use of the daVinci robot (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, CA) for radical prostatectomy procedures is not currently profitable, but it has the potential to become profitable, according to two studies presented at the AUA annual meeting. However, the studies' authors say that the costs associated with robotic procedures must eventually come down because the technology is here to stay.

The Nevada Cancer Institute has opened its flagship research and care center in Las Vegas.

Patients who receive a kidney transplant are nearly four times more likely than the general population to develop melanoma, according to a study conducted at Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA.

Men treated with photoselective vaporization of the prostate using the GreenLight laser system (Laserscope, San Jose, CA) for obstructive BPH achieve significant improvements in symptomatic and urodynamic outcomes at 5 years, according to a recently published study (J Urol 2005; 174:1344-8).

Dendreon Corp. said it plans to submit a biologics license application to the FDA to market APC8015 (Provenge), an investigational immunotherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer.

In a study confirming other recent research, researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston have found that the speed of PSA rise following treatment with hormone and radiation therapies can help predict survival in prostate cancer patients.

Scientists at 13 research centers have identified a gene mutation that may increase the risk of prostate cancer up to three times in African-American men with a family history of the disease.

A combination of samarium SM-153 lexidronam injection (Quadramet) and docetaxel (Taxotere) appears to reduce PSA levels in patients with progressive hormone-refractory prostate cancer, according to a phase II study involving 29 patients.

Urologist Andrew von Eschenbach, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, has been named by President Bush to assume the role of acting commissioner of the FDA.