The Digital Examiner
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Dr. Quon is a Radiation Oncologist and Clinical Associate Professor at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre and University of Calgary.  His clinical practice focuses on the treatment of genitourinary (prostate, bladder, testicular) and head and neck cancers.  His research goal is to improve the outcomes of patients with cancer through health services research and clinical trials.  His recent work focuses on using real-world data to improve the treatment and active surveillance of patients with low-risk prostate cancer.  Dr. Quon has received peer-reviewed grants and was the co-principal investigator (PI) of a multi-centre randomized trial optimizing stereotactic body radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

PROSTAID Calgary is a registered charity that relies on the generosity of its members, supporters and friends to achieve its goals. Tax receipts are issued for all amounts over $20.00.                                                 
Your donations are used to support our monthly journal (the Digital Examiner), our free online video library, our website, our outreach programs and general awareness.

I’ve been asked to update my story first posted in The Pathfinder in 1999, (Pathfinder was the first name for our newsletter which became “The Digital Examiner”).

From Bob Shiell                                                                 Past President of Prostaid Calgary

The MAN VAN® is Canada’s first and only mobile men’s health clinic offering FREE PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) blood testing used for early detection of prostate cancer.
-No appointment necessary
-Testing ages 40 to 80
-Find the next community clinic near you
-15 minutes can save your life!

The MiCheck® Prostate test is an algorithm that combines test results from three blood markers (PSA, free PSA, HE4) and the patient’s digital rectal exam result to give a risk score for the presence of clinically significant cancer.                                                   November 2023                                                                        URO Today

Osteoporosis, which refers to bone disease that develops when bone mineral density and bone mass decreases or when the quality or structure of bone changes, can lead to a decrease in bone strength that can increase the risk of skeletal fractures. All patients receiving androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) are at increased risk of fragility fractures secondary to osteoporosis.                                      November 2023                                                                 URO Today News                                                                                        

Historically, there has been a lack of reliable biomarkers to predict response to combined hormone therapy and radiotherapy, a standard treatment for men with high-risk prostate cancer. The enzyme encoded by the gene HSD3B1 is a potential predictive biomarker that may aid clinicians in determining up front whether a patient with prostate cancer has a more aggressive biology that may benefit from intensified hormone therapy combinations.                                                                            December 2023                                                                        Urology Times

Active surveillance is the multimodal monitoring of patients with low- or favorable intermediate-risk prostate cancer with the goal of minimizing over-treatment and side effects of definitive therapy while transitioning to active treatment at the time of disease progression.                                                                 December 2023                                                                  URO Today                                                                            

Radiation that kills only tumour cells and spares healthy tissue? It sounds too good to be true. But if the promise of recent research is fulfilled, the FLASH technique of ultra high dose-rate delivery could present the greatest transformation of radiotherapy – a treatment required by half of all cancer patients – since the introduction of the linear accelerator machines in the 1950s.                        November 2023                                                Cancerrworld
                                                                                                     

Prostate brachytherapy  is a form of radiation therapy used to treat prostate cancer. Prostate brachytherapy involves placing radioactive sources in the prostate gland, where the radiation can kill the cancer cells while causing less damage to healthy tissue nearby.                                                                                                                                                                     December 2023                                                                        PCRI

Phase III clinical trials have demonstrated the viability of intermittent hormone therapy in many patients with advanced prostate cancer -- this means that patients with undetectable PSAs who, in the past, would have been treated with hormone therapy for the rest of their lives can now consider allowing their testosterone to return, monitoring the PSA until it reaches a certain threshold, and then resuming hormone therapy at least until an undetectable PSA is again achieved.
May 2023                                                                            PCRI