Crila, A Solution to Old Men’s Urinary Problems?

BY MARK SCHOLZ, MD

As we get older, we run into all kinds of difficulties.  Poor hearing, sexual dysfunction, memory problems and arthritic joints, just to name a few. Bladder issues in particular can be troublesome, interrupting sleep, making us dread long drives or forcing us to visit the bathroom at an inopportune time.

As a prostate oncologist taking care of many men who are in their 60s and 70s, it’s no surprise that I hear a lot about urinary difficulties. These problems are often thought to result from prostate enlargement, otherwise known as BPH. The swollen gland ends up pinching the urinary passage way (called the urethra).  Slow urination and incomplete emptying of the bladder are the result. 

Prostate gland enlargement with incomplete bladder emptying can frequently be solved with common prescription medications like Flomax, Rapaflo and Uroxatrol which relax the muscles in the wall of the urethra and help to open up the passageway.  Proscar and Avodart can shrink the prostate but they also tend to shrink your libido. The most popular treatment is a nonprescription—Saw Palmetto an herbal product that works by relaxing the muscles in the urethra.

However, after doing thousands of color Doppler ultrasound examinations, which by the way is the most precise way to measure the size of the prostate, I have learned that BPH is a less common cause of men’s urinary problems. So what is the primary reason for men’s urinary frustrations? Prostatitis—low grade inflammation of the gland with secondary irritation. What causes prostatitis?  In a minority of cases it is due to bacterial infection. When this type of prostatitis occurs it may improve with antibiotics. But for the vast majority of cases we simply don’t know the cause.  Virus or autoimmune causes have been theorized but nothing has been proven. Our ignorance, however, has nothing to do with its prevalence. It is not widely realized, but almost all men have some degree of chronic inflammation in their prostate glands.

Though we don’t know the precise etiology, anti-inflammatory medications can be quite effective at alleviating the symptoms of prostatitis. Over the counter products like Aleve and Motrin are effective. Celebrex, is a prescription anti-inflammatory agent that is billed as having less stomach irritation. However, unless the pills are used continuously, the inflammation comes back.

Recently, I have been introduced to a natural anti-inflammatory substance discovered in the flower of the Crila plant. Several of our patients tried Crila with notable improvement to their urinary symptoms. So far we have not observed any side effects.  To investigate Crila’s effectiveness further, I have petitioned the manufacturer to provide a 3-month supply of Crila to 15 of our patients at no cost. Patients who have problems with frequent urination, a strong sense of urinary urgency or have to get up frequently at night to urinate may want to consider contacting Sabrina in our office about their eligibility for participating in this clinical trial. 

The Amazing Gleason Score

BY MARK SCHOLZ, MD


Everyone is excited about the latest craze in medical technology—genetic analysis of tumor cells, which I’ll call GAT for short. The scientific progress that has been made with GAT in my opinion is the second most exciting area of advancement in medical technology today (see further below for more about the first most exciting area). GAT technology is already being commercialized for use in the medical marketplace in products like Prolaris and Oncotype. This technology is able to predict the aggressiveness of prostate cancers, enabling us to differentiate between the men who need immediate treatment and those who can postpone treatment safely.

The predictive power of GAT is certainly exciting, but there is already an effective form of genetic testing available that has been around for more than 40 years, the Gleason scoring system. The Gleason system relies on the visual appearance of cells under the microscope to draw conclusions about their inner genetic makeup. In the medical world, using the visual appearance of the cancer cells is called phenotypic analysis. GAT is genotypic analysis.  Drawing conclusions about underlying genetic makeup by simple visual assessment is a pervasive in human experience.  In courtship, we rely on phenotypic analysis of the underlying genetic make-up of potential spouses to form an opinion about their suitability as potential mates.  Perusal of the genetic pool of immediate family members provides further insight.

So how can Gleason score draw conclusions about the underlying genetic potential for tumor aggressiveness simply by looking at the appearance of cells under a microscope?  The answer is to do a comparison of the visual appearance of cancer cells with the appearance of normal prostate cells. Normal cells in the prostate perform varied functions but still work together as a team.  Specifically, healthy cells form into definable structures called glands.  In these glands some cells manufacture prostatic fluid, a complex liquid comprising the ejaculate for the sperm to swim in.  Other cells organize to form ducts, a piping system to drain the fluid from the outer periphery of the gland and channel it into the middle of the prostate so that a large quantity of fluid can be expelled through the urethra at just the right moment.  All of these different cells work as a team and coexist in the prostate functioning together in a structured glandular arrangement.   
 
When a trained pathologist looks at tumor cells under the microscope he grades them by the degree of cellular disorder.  He is asking himself the question, “How much do these cells retain the normal glandular characteristics of the prostate gland?”  If a cross section of the tumor looks like an unbroken sheet of uniform cells, the cancer is high-grade; the cells have lost their ability to cooperate with each other and form glands. The cancer cells have been honed down into little race cars with only one mission, to aggressively pursue its own replicative destiny. When tumors have this appearance they are graded as a Gleason 9 or 10.  On the other hand, if the appearance of the tumor shows residual glandular components, it is less aggressive, perhaps a Gleason 7.  Gleason 6 “cancer,” the type the one that never spreads, looks almost like normal prostate gland tissue.  
 
Predicting future tumor behavior is obviously very important. How fast will it grow?  Is it likely to spread? How well can it be expected to respond to treatment?  As a result of decades of experience, doctors have learned to use the Gleason scoring system to accurately predict the long-term outcome in individual patients. The new GAT tests represent an important additional refinement, further enhancing our ability to predict the future behavior of an individual cancer. GAT holds one even bigger promise.  In the future we believe GAT testing will be a powerful aid in the selection of targeted therapy, i.e., picking cancer treatments with anticancer activity tailored to individual tumor types.  This hope, however, will have to be postponed until our limited armamentarium of effective treatments is further expanded.    
 
Now, what is it that I consider to be the most exciting area of medical progress? Since I am an impatient type of guy, someone who is looking for quick results, I find immunotherapy more exciting than GAT. To fully exploit the potential of GAT we will need to invent new pills for each of the myriad of genetically different tumor types. Immunotherapy on the other hand comes with its own “built-in” GAT system that enables it to target the unique genetic signature of individual cancer cells. The immune system is so smart, all we have to do is “flip the switch on” and starts cranking out genetically targeted anticancer therapy. Recent developments in the field of immunology are truly mind-boggling and hold promise for a big revolution in cancer therapy within the next 5-10 years.  I’ll try to address some of these recent advances in an upcoming blog.