The Prostate Net

06/05/2026

White House proposes vast overhaul of US science funding:

The proposed rules would put political appointees in control of all federal grants; de-emphasize peer review; place more restrictions on meeting attendance for grant holders; limit collaborations between federally funded US scientists and overseas colleagues; and restrict federal financial support for the publication of US scientists’ results in scientific journals.

The 412-page proposal, issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on 29 May, applies to all federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world’s largest funder of biomedical research — and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Just four days after it was posted, the proposal had drawn more than 3,500 comments from the public. Comments reviewed by Nature were almost all critical, although some agreed that reform was needed.

Read the article at:

The Trump administration’s proposal aims to improve transparency in federal funding, but critics fear the proposed rules would politicize research

06/04/2026

Promising Results, With Remaining Questions:

A major clinical trial called PROTEUS showed that adding a hormone-blocking pill called apalutamide to standard hormone therapy, before and after surgery, significantly reduced the risk of prostate cancer spreading in men with high-risk localized disease, with 78.2% of patients on apalutamide free from distant metastasis at five years, compared to 73.5% on placebo.

The drug nearly eliminated detectable cancer in the prostate before surgery in some patients as well, with 8.9% of men on apalutamide having no cancer or minimal cancer remaining at the time of their operation, compared to just 1% of those who did not receive it.

Apalutamide is not yet FDA-approved for use before and after surgery in this setting, but the PROTEUS results are expected to form the basis of a new FDA submission.

An area of concern from my perspective as a patient advocate:

This treatment is not for everyone. PROTEUS enrolled men with specifically high-risk, aggressive prostate cancer. The decision to add a year of hormone therapy involves real side effects — hot flashes, fatigue, possible mood changes — and should be made carefully with your doctor based on your individual situation.
Who was considered "high risk" in PROTEUS?

Patients had to meet one of several aggressive disease criteria before entering the study. These included:

Gleason Score 9–10 (Grade Group 5) in at least one biopsy core.
Extensive Gleason 8 disease (Grade Group 4) on biopsy.
A combination of:
Gleason 7 (4+3) or Gleason 8 disease, and
High tumor volume and/or
PSA ≥20 ng/mL.

Some patients had clinical lymph-node-positive disease (cN1) but no distant metastases.

Cancer was still considered potentially curable with surgery but had a substantial risk of recurrence or metastasis.

Who was NOT represented in PROTEUS?
The results should not automatically be applied to men with:

Gleason 3+3 (Grade Group 1)
Gleason 3+4 (Grade Group 2)
Most favorable-intermediate-risk disease
Many cases of unfavorable-intermediate-risk disease
Low-volume cancers detected through screening
Men on active surveillance

These patients generally have a much lower risk of recurrence, and the balance between benefit and the side effects of a year of androgen deprivation plus apalutamide may be very different.

Bottomline, while these are important results for the targeted group of study participants, they do not indicate applicability for every patient, even those within the "High Risk" profile. It should encourage every man to establish a baseline of their prostate health as they would for high blood, high cholesterol, cardiac risk conditions, diabetes, etc. and then speak with a healthcare professional to determine the appropriate course of monitoring or action based on their own personalized condition.

For more information on the PROTEUS study, read the article at:

The PROTEUS trial suggests adding apalutamide (Erleada) to hormone therapy before and after surgery helps men with high-risk prostate cancer.

06/02/2026

In this article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors have directly, and correctly, targeted the cynicism and criticism that most patients have relative to the healthcare system in the U.S.

A couple of the more salient quotes:

"In this age of corporate medicine, when health system leaders say, we are building the new hospital of the future alongside world-class facilities for biomedical research, I hear: we are playing to win in our current medical system rather than innovating to improve it, even though it is failing patients and causing unprecedented departures from the health professions.

"And when — the situational complexity and their good intentions notwithstanding — they say, we have acquired two more community-based local hospitals, a move that will allow us to see more patients with complex medical needs at our flagship campus, I hear: having already ghettoized primary care and psychiatry, those desperately needed, health-essential, underfunded services, into another former community-based hospital where our cultural imperialism has already been established, we are continuing to invade foreign territories in search of locally scarce raw materials and significant captive markets, leaving the colonized literally and culturally impoverished while increasing our own wealth and power."

Read the article at:

Increasingly, in the age of corporate medicine, the fundamental values of U.S. health system leaders and clinicians are diverging, to the detriment of trust, communication, morale, and patient care.

05/22/2026

Artificial intelligence is poised to take on a more-active role in the laboratory: two new systems, described today in Nature, use teams of AI agents to develop hypotheses, propose experiments and analyse data.

Each system still relies on human input at various stages, but they boast timelines that can be remarkably shorter than when the process is left to human minds and hands alone. When the systems were asked to identify existing drugs that might be repurposed for different conditions, they arrived at plausible answers in a matter of hours.

Read the article at:

Systems can generate hypotheses, interpret data and suggest ways to develop medicines.

05/22/2026

The Commonwealth Fund is pleased to announce the launch of a major new initiative: State Health Innovation for Transformation Initiative — SHIFT. Centered on listening, engagement, and health care innovation, this multistate initiative aims to build a roadmap for stronger health care systems.

SHIFT kicks off with a grant to United States of Care to engage with community members, health care leaders, policymakers, and others to understand the pain points and opportunities for state-level innovation and transformation in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

SHIFT is one of two new Commonwealth Fund initiatives to build a health care system in which everyone — no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make — can get and afford good health care.

The second initiative, New Vision for the U.S. Health Care System, will engage people and health care leaders across the country to answer one big question: What do we want our health care future to look like? By listening to patients, learning from their lived experiences, and engaging in forward-looking thinking, we will define what an ideal health system could and should be — and then chart a practical path to get there.

For details on the program and to learn how you or your group could participate, see:

Explore our newly updated, enhanced, and expanded International Health Care System Profiles to learn how 31 countries across six continents approach health care.

05/20/2026

Dr. Elisabeth Heath joined Virgil today to talk about emerging protocols in treating advanced prostate cancer, connecting research to community impact, and the May 29th CME Symposium in which she's participating and one that emphasizes the most compelling CME symposia today don’t just ask:

“What is the best treatment?”

They ask:

“For whom, under what circumstances, and aligned with whose values?”

Listen to the conversation at: https://www.ivoox.com/en/dra-elisabeth-heath-audios-mp3_rf_173962053_1.html

and note the info on the upcoming Symposium as to content and to register.

05/15/2026

Next Wednesday on English Radio Barcelona Blue, we speak with internationally renowned oncologist Dr. Elisabeth Heath from the Mayo Clinic about the future of prostate cancer care, groundbreaking therapies, and why personalized medicine is transforming patient outcomes.

Prostate cancer is often described as one disease, yet outcomes can differ dramatically depending on biology, genetics, access to care, and even geography. Dr. Heath, in her roles as Chair of the Department of Oncology and Chair of the Division of Oncology Research, has focused on advancing prostate cancer discovery and patient outcomes through multidisciplinary collaboration, innovative clinical trials and a commitment to optimal health for all.

The interview will be an excellent opportunity to learn about cutting-edge oncology, patient-centered care, and public health initiatives in a compelling radio conversation. This will also give us a bit of a preview to her participation in the upcoming "Continuing the Innovation Story in Prostate Cancer"Symposium to be held in Chicago on May 29th (see: PeerView.com/2026Prostate-Share).

Tune in on Wednesday, May 20th when we will broadcast Live from 4:00 to 5:00PM CET (10:00AM EST) at:
Barcelona Radio: 102.5FM - La Marina Cat
Internet: http://lamarina.cat/endirecte/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

05/14/2026

Dr. Joaquin Mateo, Group Leader of the Prostate Cancer Research Group at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, joined Virgil to provide an update on the current level of cancer care and therapeutics.

See the podcast at:

An update on managing prostate cancer with Dr. Joaquin Mateo.

05/12/2026

It is with a great deal of honor to announce that The Prostate Net has been approved for membership in Cancer Patients Europe.

I look forward to this collaborative initiative in the global fight against cancer and being able to represent and empower the voices of cancer patients and cancer survivors towards policymakers and other stakeholders, with the ultimate objective of co-creating policies that drive prevention, high-quality cancer care, treatment and survivorship in Europe.

05/12/2026

Tomorrow on English Radio Barcelona Blue we will have an encore broadcast of our interview with Dr. Joaquin Mateo, Group Leader of the Prostate Cancer Research Group at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, providing an update on the current level of cancer care and therapeutics. The broadcast will be available:

4:00 to 5:00PM CET (10:00AM EST) at:
Radio: 102.5FM - La Marina Cat
Internet: http://lamarina.cat/endirecte/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

For those who can't listen at the above time, you can access it on-demand at: https://www.youtube.com/live/jmVVJA2hqbk

An update on managing prostate cancer with Dr. Joaquin Mateo.