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The Facts of Prostate Cancer 2/3 of men over age 50 have low grade tumors or potential cancer cells in their prostate. Only 10% will develop clinically aggressive prostate cancer. These non-invasive exams tell if a tumor is aggressive or not with an accuracy exceeding traditional biopsy results and correlate well with prognosis according to the latest international cancer conferences. The PSA test has a poor correlation with cancer detection. The digital rectal exam is more accurate in detecting high grade tumors than the PSA level. Biopsies are random, invasive and may spread tumor cells. New non-invasive treatments are guided by advanced radiologic imaging technologies. The therapeutic effect is serially studied by MRI and 3-D sonography. While generally successful, interval exams may document an unsatisfactory response, allowing "standard" treatments to be started, if necessary, in a timely manner.
Newer Life-Saving Prostate Cancer Treatments Robert L. Bard, MD Morgan James Publishing • New York PROSTATE CANCER DECODED © 2008 Robert L. Bard, MD. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from author or publisher (except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages and/or show brief video clips in a review). Disclaimer The information in this book is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical care. —Dr. Robert Bard and The Biofoundation for Angiogenesis R&D Library of Congress Number: 2007935482 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60037-346-6 Printed in the United States of America Books Co-Authored by Dr. Bard ULTRASONOGRAPHY OF THE ABDOMEN ULTRASONOGRAPHY OF THE PELVIS ULTRASONOGRAPHY OF THE EYE DECONSTRUCTING PROSTATE CANCER PROSTATE CANCER DEMYSTIFIED Published by: Morgan James Publishing, LLC 1225 Franklin Ave. Ste 325 Garden City, NY 11530-1693 Toll Free 800-485-4943 www.MorganJamesPublishing.com Cover and Interior Design by: Michelle Radomski One to One Creative Services www.creativeones.net To my patients, whose courage showed me possibility To my wife, Loreto, whose vision generated reality This is for pdf blank pages...not to print You see things: and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were: and say, "Why not?" —George Bernard Shaw This is for pdf blank pages...not to print ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Loreto Bard, Executive Director of the Biofoundation for Angiogenesis Research and Development, for her assistance in coordinating international multidisciplinary medical exchanges that advanced the concepts developed in this book. I wish to thank members of: the Prostate Cancer Research Institute; Drs. Duke Bahn, Stanley Brosman, Arthur Lurvey, Mark Scholz and Charles Myers; members of the Catholic University Hospital in Rome, Italy, Drs. Giuseppe Brisinda, Federica Cadeddu and Giorgio Maria: members of the Mayo Clinic Foundation, Drs. Thayne Larson, Benjamin Larson and Lance Mynderse: member of the Academic Hospital of Bicetre, Dr.Francoise Giuliano: members of The Prostatitis Foundation, Drs. Susan Keay and John Warren: members of the NY Roentgen Society, Drs. Richard Stock, Lincoln Pao, Michael Zelefsky, Alan Pollack, Shalom Kalnicki: members of the Societe Francaise de Radiologie, Drs. Guy Frija, Olivier Helenon, JF Moreau and JM Correas; members of the Paul Morel Hospital, Vesoul, France, Drs. JL Sauvain, R Palasac and P. Palasac; members of the Instituto Radiologia, Policlinico Umberto I, Rome, Drs. Plinio Rossi, Roberto Passariello and Vito Cantisani: members of the Groupe Hospitalier Necker- Enfants Malades, Paris, France, Drs. Bertrand Dufour, N. Thiounn, JM Correas and Y. Chretien; members of the Imperial College of Medicine, London, Dr. David Cosgrove and Sir Richard Sykes; members of the American Urological Association, Drs. Carl Olsson, William DeWolf, Edward Messing, Louis Denis, Eric Rovner, Ernest Sosa, Alexis Te, Michael Manyak, Michael Marberger, Joseph Smith, Jr, Harris Nagler, J. Fracchia, Peter Scardino, M. Droller, P. Schlegel, S. Kaplan, H. Lepor, M. Grasso, N. Romas, A. Melman, I. Grunberger, R. Macchia, M. Choudhury and Patrick Walsh; members of the New York Cancer Society, Drs. Marvin Rotman and Howard Hochster. Dr. Jelle Barentsz, president of the International Cancer Imaging Society, for developing lymph node detection technology and disseminating awareness throughout the medical profession. Special thanks to Drs. Catherine Roy, Francois Cornud, Olivier Helenon, Mitchell Gaynor, Peter Scardino, Ralph Moss and Majid Ali whose books have provided new hope for cancer victims and further advanced medical knowledge. — vii — This is for pdf blank pages...not to print AUTHOR'S BACKGROUND Diplomat American Board of Radiology Member American College of Radiology Clinical Assistant Professor of Radiology New York Medical College Director, Bio-foundation for Angiogenesis Research and Development Advisory Board, International Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Society High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Certification—Prostate Cancer Imaging Member, International Cancer Imaging Society — ix — This is for pdf blank pages...not to print PROLOGUE Summer, 1949. Polio ward. Helen Hayes Hospital. New York State. First the breathing got harder. Then the fingers turned blue. I was paralyzed from the waist down with acute poliomyelitis and I now feared my diaphragms were failing. The doctors at the rehabilitation center specializing in this nationwide epidemic had already warned my parents I would never walk, even though I felt some sensation coming back in my right leg. I could hear the monotonous steady mechanical sounds from the next ward where the "iron lungs" for completely paralyzed children assisted their respiration in hopes they would recover the ability to inhale before they died. The boys I saw sent to the respirator room never came back. I was scared my next ward would be my last stop. I was five years old and worried I would never see my sixth birthday. Summer, 1949. Dr. Harold Bard's internal medicine practice. New York City. The phone rang. My father's face turned white. He told the receptionist to cancel the afternoon patients. He called my mother and told her it was such a beautiful day that they would take a drive to the country to see their son recovering from paralytic polio. My father, a bronze star medal winner as a physician during World War II, came in to examine me. He heard me cough, saw my dusky color, listened to my lungs, felt my hot forehead and went over to talk to my doctors. There was arguing. My father told the physician in charge I had acute pneumonia—they told him I was dying from the paralysis of my diaphragms preventing me from breathing. My father stopped talking to them, came back and whispered to me: "See these little white pills? Take one pill before each meal. Do not tell anyone else you are taking them. I will be back tomorrow." I hid the tablets under my pillow. At meal time I decided to follow my dad's advice and ignore the specialists taking care of me. The next morning my breathing was bet- ter. My father had brought back with him the antibiotic penicillin from the Pacific theater of war. It was still not widely available in the United States in 1949 and certainly not well understood. Penicillin saved the GI's lives during the war. My father saved my life by trusting his battle tested experience rather than the advice of the so called experts. My father studied medicine in Switzerland and was fluent in 7 languages. He was training in surgical subspecialties in New York when World War II broke out. He volunteered to serve his country and went to Pearl Harbor to treat the wounded. He — xi — PROSTATE CANCER DECODED was then sent with the Army Ranger Units to fight with the soldiers in Alaska and, later, in the South Pacific. He fought overseas for 28 months continuously without ever coming home to see his new born son. He fought in the arctic, fought in the jungle, fought in the desert and fought in the mountains. He lived medicine in the raw—he saw all types of injury and disease in the extreme—he improvised to save his soldiers by operating in tents lit by flash lights and kerosene lanterns during counter-attacks. He passed on his passion to develop new medical ideas to his son by example. I might have died prematurely if I had listened to the traditional medical advice of those days. I volunteered to support my country during the Vietnam conflict. With one year of radiology specialty experience, I was sent to Thailand to support the Tactical Air Command as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. As the only USAF radiologist within 300 kilometers of Udorn Royal Thai Air Base, I went to far off places to assist in diagnoses that took me to southern Thailand, Laos, Formosa, Guam, Vietnam and Cambodia. The Air Force medical facility at our base took care of the U.S. General Staff and soldiers of our allied forces. This was a "state of the art" military hospital and retained physicians of the highest caliber from all over the US. I also learned that the practice of medicine was not from a text book. Reality did not coincide with cook book formulations. For example, the treatment of the Cambodian colonel whose chest x-ray revealed multiple live hand-grenades buried in his chest wall could not be found in any medical text book. There were also many different ways to treat diseases within our nation-wide American thinking and even more options employing oriental possibilities. Remember, in China, if the Chinese emperor died, so did his physician. Exposed to varied treatment possibilities, I eagerly tried to integrate eastern medicine concepts with proven western medicine teachings. I soon learned that there were alternative ways to treat many medical problems. I also noted that westerners were physically and emotionally different than oriental peoples. For example, the Thai people would rest by squatting. American's, trying to fit in with local customs, quickly developed knee joint irritations. The make up of their Asian bodies was notably different from our North American physiques. Upon completion of active duty, I returned to the United States as a major and as a man who had seen diseases and treatments not common in traditional medical studies. I was humbled by the inexplicable success of eastern remedies not readily understood by western standards. — xii — FOREWORD "While MRI is certainly proving valuable, the maturation of 3-D ultrasound will go a long way towards matching MRI'S capabilities," states Dr. B. Benacerraf, Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. During October 2003, I attended the JOURNEES FRANCAISES DE RADI- OLOGIE in Paris, the major radiology conference in Europe, where I witnessed the potential of 3-Dimensional (3-D) technology for imaging the prostate that also gave computer graphic reconstructions of the capsule (covering) and internal structure, including vasculature (blood vessels) of the prostate gland. Although the equipment was approved for use all over the world, including the United States, there was not one unit being used in North America. As of this writing, I am one of the few physicians using the European designed Voluson ultrahigh resolution multiplanar automatic acquisition 3-D power Doppler ultrasound system in the United States for prostate imaging. The reason is simply that urologists use the sonogram to guide the prostate biopsy and do not take advantage of the advanced technology that offers 3-D imaging like an MRI exam. Internists and family physicians refer patients with prostate problems to urologists. Patients naturally seek urologic assistance as the first step to resolving prostate disorders. Radiologists do not see patients for this type of exam because patients are not referred for radiologic imaging by urologists or family practitioners, in large part because this is a new diagnostic modality. I am writing this book to inform patients about the cutting edge of medical diagnosis and new therapeutic options using image guided treatments. I have changed my profession from "diagnostic radiologist" who saw only films to "interventional radiologist" who examines a patient and provides therapy based on the current picture of the disease. Treatment may be tailored for each patient based on newer concepts in radiological imaging and on sensitivity to the patient's needs and lifestyle choices. Life without humor, according to Oscar Wilde, is not worth living. Medicine without compassion may not be worth dispensing. It is too easy today to cure the disease and destroy the patient in the process as we have witnessed with chemotherapies. This book aims at preserving human dignity and controlling cancer at the same time. My purpose for writing this book is to provide practical knowledge of disease, offer hope based on scientific data and realistic empowerment to deal with life's medical adversities. — xiii — PROSTATE CANCER DECODED Not all prostate cancer kills. In fact, many prostate cancers are now treatable without surgery. Minimally invasive treatment for benign diseases can be done in fifteen minutes while minimally invasive definitive cancer treatments may take from one to four hours. But, the message here is that a person need not fear prostate cancer when new and non-invasive modalities are now being utilized to detect malignant tumors quickly, painlessly, and more accurately. The multiplicity of non invasive and minimally invasive therapies with fewer side effects offers men a wider and more palatable array of health choices. — iii— TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page xi Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page xiii CHAPTER ONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 1 New Methods of Detection CHAPTER TWO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 9 Understanding the Facts CHAPTER THREE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 Rethinking Fundamental Knowledge (A New Fact-Based Perspective on Cancer) CHAPTER FOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 23 Practical Anatomy, Pathology and Diagnosis CHAPTER FIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 43 Systematic Evaluation of Prostate Cancer CHAPTER SIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 49 Options for Cancer Therapy CHAPTER SEVEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 89 Assessing Treatment Response CHAPTER EIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 105 Assisting the Body's Defense System CHAPTER NINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 119 Promising Scientific Discoveries CHAPTER TEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 149 Cancer Screening Pro's and Con's APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 157 — xv — This is for pdf blank pages...not to print CHAPTER ONE New Methods of Detection 11 PM. Emergency Department. Metropolitan Hospital. New York City, 1973. Twenty-six year old female brought in with stab wound to the chest and increasing shortness of breath. Medical team must know if there is blood in the pericardium, the sac that holds the heart. I confer with the heart surgeon, leave the ED and proceed to the obstetrics department. I bring back an ultrasound machine used on a pregnant woman's abdomen for determining fetal growth and place the scanner over the heart of the bleeding patient. With clear images of the extent of the injury, the patient is rushed to the OR. The surgeon, now armed with a precise picture of the site of the hemorrhage, targets his operation. The bleeding around the heart is stopped at 1:00 AM. The patient lives. This real life story shows even a dedicated medical technology may have multiple potential uses. Eye scanners were used on the breast in 1978 to perceive mammary problems. Breast scanners looked at joints and tendons in 1990. Tendon imaging devices that showed blood vessels and demonstrated actual live blood flow near a joint were adapted to imaging the prostate in the mid 90's. Scanners, showing the face of the fetus using 3-Dimensional (3-D) pictures inside the uterus ten years ago, were soon placed on the shoulder to assess injuries. Technology that improved shoulder imaging with 3-D pictures became available for the prostate five years ago. For a while, medical imaging was mainly limited by the lack of curiosity of the physician and the paucity of semiconductor technology to make more powerful computer chips. Medical breakthroughs are sometimes as simple as thinking outside the box. The following story of the "Rat and the Cheese" is pertinent to the advancement of science, as it characterizes basic human nature and its effect on scientific discovery. A rat was put in a tunnel with a piece of cheese at the end. The rat ran down the tunnel PROSTATE CANCER DECODED I 2 and ate the cheese. Day after day the rat was able to wend its way down the course to find unerringly the tasty morsel. One day the cheese was removed. The rat went down the tunnel and tried to find the cheese. The next day the rat entered the tunnel and searched without success. The third day the rat went into the tunnel and came out without any cheese. At the end of the fourth day the rat refused to enter the tunnel. The difference between rats and human beings is—after a while, the rat gives up going down a tunnel with no cheese. The rat re-thought the situation by learning quickly what worked and what did not work. Human beings often continue their behavior patterns in the absence of tangible rewards. For example, if one goes into a room full of people and ask those who are 10 pounds or more overweight to raise their hands, and then ask those who know that exercise and dieting will control their weight to raise their hands—the same hands go up. Do you know how monkeys get caught? You see, these primates are similar to humans in important ways. A banana is put into a jar with a narrow neck. The monkey reaches into the jar and grabs the banana in his closed fist. The width of the clenched hand with the banana is wider than the jar opening. As the hunter comes to catch the monkey, the trapped animal gets worried and agitated, but will not let go of the banana. All it had to do was give up what it was holding on to—simple, but not part of instinctual behavior. Like the rat analogy, people often behave like other higher order mammals. Men habitually avoid dealing with health issues by denial based on fear. A man's first approach to a medical problem is to wait, hoping it will go away. When the condition worsens, he waits again hoping his health won't deteriorate further. Finally, when he can no longer put up with the alteration of his lifestyle or the intolerance of his physical state, he decides to get help. FEAR stops men from being proactive in their health. Women complain bitterly about the pain of mammograms, yet few miss their yearly appointments. In New York City the current wait for this despised test is up to 4 months. What's behind the fear of seeing the doctor? Most patients fall into five categories: 1. The stoic: who sees sickness as unmanly—a sign of weakness 2. The worrier: who knows too much about possible medical side effects 3. The ostrich: who is in denial 4. The victim: who gets attention from others 5. The perfect patient: who attends to potential problems early Fear is a physiologic byproduct of incipient thwarted intention of our natural need for survival. Seeing a doctor activates our concerns over pain, interruption of daily routine, recovery and, possibly, death. White collar hypertension is a real phenomenon. NEW METHODS OF DETECTION l 3 Our blood pressure often rises in the doctor's office with the stress of a possible serious medical condition. A few deep breaths may bring the numbers back to normal. The same phenomenon is true with glaucoma, high pressure in the eye. Most patients hold their breath as the metal probe advances towards the eye ball. This falsely elevates the internal ocular reading. Relaxing and breathing usually lowers the number to a safe level. Other causes of fear in the doctor's office are bad childhood experiences, claustrophobia, fear of needles, fainting at the sight of blood, low pain threshold, cold examination rooms, exposing parts of the body, etc. No matter what kind of patient you are and no matter what your fear of the unknown, don't wait till it is too late. Tell the physician and his staff about your anxiety and request specific arrangements. While no one objects to a prostate sonogram, most men wince at the thought of being inside the claustrophobic MRI tube for half an hour. For these concerns, we may modify the procedure to keep the head outside the tube or inject anti-anxiety medicine to reduce the stress of the procedure. For example, a colleague in good health developed heartburn and treated it with antacids for two weeks. When it got worse and the acid rose up in his throat irritating the voice box producing hoarseness, he called the gastroenterologist. The GI doctor told him to fast after midnight and see him at 8 AM the next morning for an endoscopy—a scope inserted through the mouth that looks at the esophagus and stomach. He had a light dinner and started the fast earlier at 10 PM. After the anesthesia wore off from the procedure, he was told the test couldn't be performed because the stomach had not emptied and the retained food contents blocked the view of the endoscope. He knew in a flash that common causes for an obstruction preventing emptying of the stomach was either a severe duodenal ulcer or cancer of the outlet end of the stomach. Since he had no real pain, he was sure he had a malignancy. He consulted me and we arrived at the understanding that worst possible outcome, cancer, might still be in an early stage. The test was repeated after a 12 hour fast and a small benign ulcer of the stomach wall was discovered which resolved in a month under routine treatment. The moral is: it is better to deal with your worst nightmare promptly than to procrastinate and lose the opportunity for curative treatment. The ancient philosopher, Seneca, said "pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit" or "the wish to be cured is part of the cure" Physicians are human, too. While we try to do the best for our patients, doctors are slow to give up customary ideas and even slower to accept new concepts. Medical practitioners rightfully demand proof that a change from a tried and true routine will make sense before adopting a new method. My former partner and late colleague, Dr. Selig Strax, Professor of Surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 4 also commented on the tendency of the medical profession's avoidance of change. He had introduced the first "lumpectomy" operation for breast conservation at Mount Sinai half a century ago. It took a quarter century for this proven method to be uniformly adopted throughout the national medical community. The original radical mastectomy surgical operation, removing the entire breast, chest wall muscles, and occasionally part of the rib cage, was based on the 100 year old idea that cancer spread like a crab to local organs. After the discovery that small cancers could spread to the lymph nodes (glands) and to every other organ through the blood stream, did the radical mastectomy cease? No. For the next thirty years this mutilating procedure was the gold standard of breast cancer therapy in spite of growing proof that it had outlived its purpose. Women of the last quarter century didn't have this information easily available to them. Today's man is armed with the internet, the news media and varied support groups. Men need not acquiesce to a specified treatment or dictated therapy. The information revolution allows them to choose the best available medical options for their particular condition and level of comfort with the stated potential risks. Einstein once said: "imagination is more important than knowledge" If I propose the "prostate lumpectomy," how long will it take for the scientific community to even consider the possibility? This book offers options to routine medical care in the United States, and proposes simple, straightforward and logical alternatives to current "gold standard" accepted treatments. Many of these diagnostic modalities and therapeutic procedures are common practice in Europe and other countries with advanced socialized medicine around the civilized world. There are two important phrases in classic scientific methodology: clinical trial and anecdotal observation. Clinical trial is evidence accumulated based on an assumption of a possible mechanism of therapy to be investigated. Anecdotal observation means that a treatment worked once or twice, and the mechanism may not be readily understood at that time. The bard of modern times says, "To succeed, or not to succeed; that is the question." It is more useful to have a treatment that works and is not understood than to have a therapy that makes sense but ultimately fails. A beef steak placed over a black eye helps, however, the cold and pressure of an ice pack would do better to reduce the pain and swelling. Likewise, dabbing tincture of iodine over a cut will sterilize the wound but produce more tissue damage due to its high local toxicity. David Hess in the Rutgers University Press publication, (1999) "Evaluating Alternative Cancer Therapies" quotes the following from medical scholar Robert Houson: The FDA requires a convincing mechanism to obtain approval for clinical trials, and I think this is a completely unnecessary requirement. If there are indications NEW METHODS OF DETECTION l 5 of benefit in humans or animals, that should bypass the whole issue of mechanism. The point is that the investigators do not have to know the mechanism in order to corroborate the effect that is occurring. In cancer, case studies have a greater degree of validity than in other diseases. In cancer the rate of spontaneous remis- sion is extremely low, so low that it is virtually zero. Therefore, if you have just a few cases, even only two cases, you have something that is significant and most likely meaningful. So, I consider what is being dismissed as anecdotal evidence, to be in cancer, actually an impressive proof of success because you can have much more detail in the case studies than you can in a clinical trial. In the 1980's, when the state of the art sonogram equipment showed that doctors could see malignant lymph nodes (cancerous glands), I started a protocol with Cabrini Medical Center in New York City under the famed breast surgeon, Dr. Henry Leis. We scanned patients with breast cancer to see if the underarm lymph nodes were involved by tumor. Detection of these cancerous glands meant surgery was not indicated, since abnormal glands showed the cancer had spread too far for a local operation to be useful. The results of our investigation spared selected patients unnecessary surgery. The project showed that the sonogram accurately detected larger cancerous glands, thereby saving some patients from the operating room. We also discovered certain types of highly aggressive breast cancers seemed to shrink the breast instead of producing a lump. In these patients, the mammogram was read as "normal" even though the contracted breast tissue was hard as a rock at the physical examination. This variety of cancer produced scarring and retraction of the tissues as it grew. While the mammogram was useless in the diagnosis, we learned the sonogram visualized them easily. The hospital then began a screening program for high risk patients which led to the discovery of malignancies at very early stages. This has increased the amount of surgery and decreased the spread of cancer resulting in more favorable outcomes. The investigational use of ultrasound technology became a clinical trial after anecdotal cases pointed the way to a specific treatment protocol. The judicious application of the sonographic modality has simultaneously decreased unnecessary surgery and increased curative operations. My high school chemistry teacher in 1958 was Mr. Marantz. As an eager student, I had looked up some information in a journal and proudly told him I had done some "research" on a topic. He looked at me sternly, saying, "Research is not finding something in a book. Research is being immersed in a project and observing and analyzing what happens during the investigation." He then related his story how he became a school teacher. He was a topnotch industrial research chemist before he entered a teaching PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 6 career. The New Jersey pharmaceutical plant he worked in was located alongside a river. Three of the walls of the laboratory were steel and concrete. The fourth wall, facing the river, was made of plasterboard and wood. He invented new substances by taking risks and boldly trying unexplored chemical pathways. From time to time there would be a fire or an explosion, and he, the false wall and the experiment would land in the river. After the fourth time and loss of three fingers, he left for the (at the time) safer task of teaching high school students. I, too, took a risk in forging my path in medicine. After I returned from military service in South East Asia to my radiology residency at the New York Medical College, I requested a leave from the program to attend the renowned Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. The AFIP, as it is commonly referred to, is the national medical teaching center specializing in correlating radiologic findings with unusual pathologic specimens. The chief of my residency allowed me three months unpaid leave to study in Washington, D.C. My experience of reviewing selected cases from the US Armed Forces referred in from the military's world wide theaters of operation gave me a particular edge in interpreting x-rays. I remember vividly in 1973 the director of the radiology training program showed a difficult case of gonococcus urethritis (venereal disease of the male urethra) at the afternoon teaching conference, and I was the only resident who made the diagnosis because of my specific experiences in the military and my correlational training at the AFIP. In disbelief, the director commented aloud that I must have seen the films beforehand in the urology clinic of the hospital. As my third year was finishing, it was the custom of the department head to sit with the residents and guide them to their future. The chief completely dismissed my enthusiasm for the new field of diagnostic ultrasound as "impractical." I took a risk, just like my chemistry teacher. This time the experiment didn't blow up. I was fortunate that the sonogram has become the primary imaging diagnostic test in use today worldwide. As of this date, many new, previously unthinkable uses are becoming available to the medical community in this rapidly growing diagnostic field that has re-entered the treatment arena by its ability to image guide therapies. Simply said, if a disease or tumor can be imaged by a radiologic procedure, it may be treated under direct visual observation at the same time. Much of the work I am presenting is both a clinical trial and anecdotal evidence simultaneously studied and accumulated over a twelve year period. During this time the subject has been exhaustively evaluated and ongoingly redesigned as better technologies became available. I saw alternative cancer treatments work in patients. These cancer survivors came in for follow up exams, continuously, every six months NEW METHODS OF DETECTION l 7 to monitor their health. All the men had refused traditional medical therapies and standard surgical regimens. In short order, the mechanism of action of tumor growth revealed itself to me. Also, the possibility to use ultrasound technology for diagnostic evaluation and prognostic information predicting the longevity of the patient became obvious. The Rat and the Cheese analogy helps us understand the mechanism of change in the practice of medicine. Acceptance of new ideas occurs slowly, and its transforma- tion into action as distinct new protocols is frequently glacial. The information pre- sented in this book is not new, is not hidden and is not controversial. The majority of concepts in this book have been in use internationally for over twenty years. The same way that the radical mastectomy was phased out by the breast "lumpectomy," so may the traditional radical prostatectomy pass into history as a treatment that no longer serves the good of most patients. Already the standard treatment to improve urine flow in men with enlarged prostates (the Trans-Urethral Resection of the Prostate or TURP) is becoming less popular amongst younger urologists in training programs. When Dr. Bertrand Guillonneau introduced the robotic radical prostatectomy procedure in Paris in 1995, he was considered strange to alter the existing established treatment. His student, Dr. Arnon Krongrad, brought this laser surgical technique to the United States in 1999, and was initially outcast by the local medical community. Patients who can drive home a few days after surgery cannot understand why this isn't the new standard of care. Today's patients are not passive. Educated patients want what does work rather than what should work. The drug finasteride (Proscar) was developed fifteen years ago as a miracle cure for progressive urinary symptoms of an enlarged prostate. Initial clinical trials showed it was useful and Proscar rapidly received FDA approval. Early studies also suggested that it may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Anecdotal reports that it was only min- imally effective began to appear and increased in number. New data also suggested men were developing serious cancers while on the medication. A critique of a large study recently concluded, surprisingly, that while the drug was somewhat useful in alleviating the symptoms of benign prostatic hypertrophy, and there was an overall 25 percent decrease in prostate cancer prevalence, there was a 68 percent increase in the frequency of high grade killing prostate cancers in the treated group. This report, published in the 2004 Journal of Urology by Dr. Patrick Walsh of Johns Hopkins Medical Center, underscores the interaction between clinical trials and anecdotal reports. The wonder drug produced fewer non-lethal tumors but stimulated more aggressive killing cancers. PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 8 News Tribune, December 10, 2004 reports researchers at California's Stanford University School of Medicine have added to the confusion with new finding that 98 percent of all prostates removed in the last five years at that facility were removed unnecessarily. These operations left about 3 percent of the patients incontinent and at least half with sexual difficulties, including impotency. The news media and increasing numbers of medical articles are shining a needed spotlight on medical practices and scientific beliefs that require transformation. The trend in cancer therapy is turning towards treating the active tumor more aggressively and sparing the non threatening part of the organ. There is further concern surrounding current acceptable diagnostic and treatment practices, not the least of which is the reliability of the now embattled prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test. It is time to rethink long-standing and traditional approaches to prostate cancer detection and the efficacy of currently accepted cures. CHAPTER TWO Understanding the Facts A century ago, physicians were taught that cancers started with a few cells that divided, gradually enlarging to become major clusters of actively growing cells called tumors. At a certain size, the tumor would become more aggressive and begin invading adjacent organs and structures spreading out like the tentacles of an octopus. The concept of blood borne distant metastasizing (spreading) of a local tumor appeared years later. This theory did not explain the fact that some breast and prostate cancers would appear and remain stable over periods of up to thirty-five years without growing or metastasizing. Fifty years ago the colon polyp (small benign growth) was thought to be innocent, until it was learned that certain polyps left untreated eventually turned malignant. There appear to be many shades of gray in our current black or white reality. Modern ideas of cancer generation have continually changed over time. Newer concepts and innovative treatments are presented in the following chapters. Sometimes physicians accept evidence that does not fully take into consideration the totality of facts at hand, or perhaps, are not cognizant of the overall spectrum of clinical data. I acknowledge generalization is useful and necessarily makes learning easier, but diseases, and patients individually, do not conform to generalities. Let us look at "facts" currently made available to physicians and the public by the media and cancer organizations. According to American Cancer Society Facts and Figures 2004, 230,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year in the United States. Of those, 30,000 men die annually. Findings reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute in collaboration with the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries show the leading type of cancer causing death among men is PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 10 lung cancer, however, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer diagnosed in men in the United States. Prostate cancer facts: • One in 6 men will get prostate cancer. • A man is 33 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than a woman is to develop breast cancer. • As baby boomer men reach the target zone for prostate cancer, beginning at age 50, the number of new cases is projected to increase dramatically. • By 2015, there will be more than 300,000 new prostate cancer cases each year, a 50 percent increase. • There has been no change in the US cancer death rate between 1950 and 2001. • In this same time period, there have been decreases in the death rate for other diseases: Pneumonia decreased 54% Strokes decreased 68% Heart disease decreased 58% The lifetime probability of a man in the US developing cancer is 50 percent. A breakdown of this data shows the lifetime cancer probability for: 1. Prostate–17% 2. Lung–8% 3. Colon–6% 4. Bladder–3% 5. Lymphoma–2% 6. Melanoma–2% 7. Leukemia–2% 8. Mouth–1% 9. Kidney–1% 10. Stomach–1% •Men are more likely to develop prostate cancer than all other cancers combined (except lung) •Prostate cancer is the most common and most rapidly increasing cancer •Without improvements in diagnosis and treatment: 1. In 2015 the number of new prostate cancer cases will increase 50% 2.In 2037 there will be over 400,000 new prostate cancer cases per year UNDERSTANDING THE FACTS l 11 3. In 2020, the number of prostate cancer deaths per year will increase 44% 4. In 2030, 80,000 men will lose their lives to prostate cancer (Statistical Source: Prostate Cancer Foundation 2004) News of New York published by the Medical Society of the State of New York reported in the March 2004 issue that: While the latest report from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) suggests that death rates for the top cancer killers in men and women are dropping, the lifetime rate of probability of developing cancer remains at 1 in 2 for men and 1 in 3 for women. The March 23, 2004 issue of the Wall Street Journal in the Health Journal article touched upon this with their piece, "Improve Prostate Cancer Detection, Doctors Change Approach to Testing. What is the change?" To increase the cancer detection rate, a lowering of the threshold for biopsy is recommended. The standard of a level of PSA greater than 4 (normal 0–4 ng/ml) was considered suspicious. Some physicians are saying this is too high to detect cancers and feel a biopsy should be performed when the PSA level is above 2.5. The May 27, 2004 issue of the New York Times reports that even when the PSA is normal, "prostate cells may prove to be cancerous." A forum on prostate cancer biopsies at the 2004 International Congress of Radiology reported the PSA would often rise following a biopsy, which would lead to another biopsy to determine the reason for the elevated PSA, which would in turn further raise the PSA resulting in another biopsy to rule out cancer based on a rising PSA level. One patient was given a series of six biopsies five different times (totaling 30 punctures) over four years due to rising PSA levels. Cancer was never found. No physician on the panel of experts made the connection that the trauma of the biopsy procedure by itself (not a cancer) may have generated higher PSA levels. (PSA levels are proven to rise due to tumor, trauma, inflammation and benign hypertrophy). What do these facts mean? Is there really an epidemic? Should men over 45 get biopsies? Do men over 40 need yearly PSA blood tests? Question: Why was an herbal medicine (PC-SPES) that successfully treated both localized and metastatic prostate cancer removed by the FDA for "impurities" 7 years ago? Question: Why are increasing numbers of men refusing prostate biopsies and turning to alternative forms of non-traditional therapies? PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 12 Question: Why does the 1940 textbook, Neoplastic Diseases: A Treatise On Tumors written by Dr. James Ewing, Professor of Oncology at Cornell University Medical Center, the most respected cancer pathologist of the 20th century, say: Until recently carcinoma of the prostate was held to be a rare disease, forming 0.27% of the carcinomas in men…. These poignant questions will be answered in the following pages, but one question remains that can be answered now: Is there a way to avoid biopsies? The answer to that question is a resounding "Yes," and comes from the international pioneer in prostate cancer imaging, Dr. Francois Cornud, Associate Professor of Interventional Radiology at Necker University Hospital in France. In 1990 Dr. Cornud began using a new technology in Paris called color Doppler ultrasound which showed abnormal blood vessels in aggressive prostate cancers. His first textbook on this subject was published in French during 1993. A 2005 version by Dr. Olivier Helenon contains 1,424 pages of medical text using the latest diagnostic imaging methodologies. Textbooks by Dr. Cornud and Dr. Roy both appeared in 2006 on the updated version of the same topics. A French oncologist, Dr. C. Cuenod, commented at the 2003 International European Radiology Convention; "le degree de la neoangiogenese est correlee a l'agressivite tumorale au risque de metastases" translated, this means, the more vascular a tumor or the more blood vessels within it, the greater the risk of spread and metastases. This idea was repeated at the 2006 Journees Francaises de Radiologie with presentations by me and by investigators at the French Cancer Institute noting that 3D blood flow imaging correlates best with aggressive cancer diagnosis. The remainder of the subject matter in this book will cover new sonogram and MRI technologies that alter the fundamental nature of cancer diagnosis and offer elegant and rational advanced treatment options. CHAPTER THREE Rethinking Fundamental Knowledge (A NEW FACT- BASED PERSPECTIVE ON CANCER) "Una sola esperienza o concludente dimonstrazione… basta a battere in terra questi ed altri centomila argomenti probabili" "A SINGLE EXPERIENCE OR CONCLUSIVE DEMONSTRATION…IS ENOUGH TO DEFEAT 100,000 POSSIBLE ARGUEMENTS" –GALILEO GALILEI 16TH CENTURY "Open your textbook to page 89 and tear it out," said my Professor of Medicine in 1965. I could hardly believe my ears, however, I, and the entire second year class of '68 at the Upstate Medical Center of the State University of New York opened up our brand new pathology texts and tore out the page on inflammation. His words, "Medical knowledge is not perfect and knowledge is not a substitute for wisdom or experience" echoed in the lecture hall. "After all, blood letting was the medical standard for hundreds of years," he continued. My first awareness that medicine was an art as well as a science was born in that experience. In 1986, I saw a young Irish woman and did a sonogram on her abdomen. This was unremarkable, and I asked her again why she was being examined. "Don't you remember me from two years ago? Don't you recall I was told I had three months to live back then?" she replied. I looked up her old chart and found pictures showing that she had wide-spread breast cancer that had metastasized to the liver, bones and abdominal glands at that time consistent with death within three to six months. "What did you do?" I asked. She answered, "I took vitamin PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 14 C and prayed." I repeated my ultrasound study confirming total absence of abdominal disease and learned from this encounter the certitude that alternative treatments had a potential role in modern medicine. Perhaps there was an art to various complementary therapies as well? A similar awakening occurred in 1995 at a breast cancer conference hosted by New York University School of Medicine. The morning lecture by the famous Swedish mammography expert, Dr. Lazlo Tabar showed that a breast cancer measuring under 10 mm (1/3 inch) in size had a 99 percent cure rate in five years by simply removing the tumor by a localized surgical lumpectomy. That afternoon, a chemotherapist of equal medical stature told the audience that chemotherapy and radiation treatments were routinely given for this type of cancer after surgical removal. The Swedish doctor jumped up and cried: "Didn't you hear my statistics this morning? What are you saying? No! What are you doing?" I had a special reason for attending that conference. A dear friend had just been diagnosed with low grade breast cancer and asked me to search out new possibilities. Breast and prostate cancers have many clinical similarities since both are glands, and new breast cancer therapies may become potential prostate cancer treatments. As I heard the different opinions of the lecturers, I was concerned with the wide variety of "standards." For example, my friend had a frozen biopsy (immediate pathologic report) on her cancer at a university hospital in New York. In order to obtain optimum results, surgeons at Harvard wait three days for the specimen to be thoroughly prepared before using the microscope to review the biopsy material. After leaving the conference, I advised her that watching this slow growing cancer was a distinct possibility as well. She had her mastectomy the very next day. The fear of the potential negative predicted outcome had crippled her ability to make rational choices and reasoned decisions about alternative health options. Five years ago physicians began questioning the value of bypass surgery for coronary artery disease. This led to more vigorous investigation of the mechanism of heart attacks. Dr. Eric Topol, an Interventional Cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, called into question the unchallenged idea that narrowing of the coronary arteries causes heart attacks. The culture of cardiology worldwide has been: fixing a narrowed artery to the heart will help the patient's heart do better. Traditional medicine has held the idea that coronary artery disease is akin to sludge building up in a pipe. Plaque (sludge) builds up over years and eventually clogs the artery causing a heart attack by blocking the blood supply to the heart. It was believed bypass surgery or angioplasty (using balloons to push back plaque in the arteries) RETHINKING FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE l 15 would open the narrowed arteries and keep them from closing up completely. It was assumed this surgical intervention would prevent heart attacks. Research from centers around the world has brought a new concept to light. The old idea that heart attacks occur from arteries narrowed by plaque is no longer the predominant model for therapy. Heart attacks occur when an area of plaque in the vessel wall bursts, causing a clot to develop over this region. It is the enlarging blood clot that blocks the artery. In up to 80% of cases, the plaque that suddenly erupts is not the one blocking the blood vessel. The dangerous plaque is soft, fragile and produces no symptoms. This region of diseased artery would not be seen by electrocardiograms, angiograms, stress tests or echocardiograms. These are silent killers now given voice by the ability to persistently review the unquestioned facts of medicine. New intra-arterial sonogram systems presented at the 2007 International Society of Endovascular Therapy Meeting are now able to detect these life threatening regions. This finding explains the fact that most heart attacks occur at 4:00 a.m., when people are sleeping and not stressed. It explains the fact that most "coronaries" happen unexpectedly, without the warning of chest pain. For example, a jogger, the very picture of health, may run three miles effortlessly on one day and die of a heart attack the next. If a narrowed artery was the culprit, then the exercise of running would have produced "angina" or severe cardiac pains. Heart patients tend to have hundreds of vulnerable plaques. The rationale of unplugging one or two arteries no longer makes sense. Researchers are also finding that plaque and heart attack risk can change dramatically and quickly. Dr. Peter Libby of Harvard Medical School recently said, "The disease is more mutable than we thought." There has been much study on the role of inflammation producing the bursting of the arterial plaque. It has been theorized that the pivotal role of aspirin in preventing heart attacks may be as much due to its antiinflammatory properties as well as the proven anticlotting mechanism. Years ago, my father, a still vigorous man and newly retired physician, was given only six months to live. At age eighty he developed mild abdominal pains after eating. His electrocardiogram was slightly abnormal. After he had his cardiac catheterization (dye study of the coronary heart arteries) he expected to be dismissed the next day. No one came to see him until a full two days after the procedure. The hospital cardiologists had reviewed it with several teams of doctors and finally told him that all his arteries were narrowed so badly that they had nothing to offer him other than the advice to get his affairs in order. I remember standing at his PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 16 bedside, saying, "We'll find some way to help you, Dad" though, at that time I had no idea what it would be. I sent word of my father's problem to friends in and out of the medical community. A week later, a non physician friend brought me an article from the New York Times written by Dr. Dean Ornish revealing a vege- tarian diet could reverse atherosclerosis (hardening of the artery). My father went on a strict diet and his coronary symptoms gradually subsided over the years. At age 87, my father developed cancer of the bile ducts, a very slow growing form of tumor. Because he had been labeled with the diagnosis of end stage heart disease, curative surgery was not proposed, and he had stents (tubes) inserted into the bile duct to keep the tumor from blocking the flow of bile from the gallbladder to the digestive tract Because he did not have definite surgical removal of the very small initial tumor, the growth kept intermittently blocking the bile flow through the tubing. He would return to the hospital every three months to have the bile duct re-opened. Soon, he became depressed, as do so many patients with chronic diseases and the quality of life alterations that accompany endlessly ongoing treatments. One Sunday morning my mother called me saying, "Come quickly. I think your father is dying. He can't get out of bed." I rushed over to see him and found him barely responsive to my questions. Finally, I shouted, "Get up! We are going for Sunday brunch at the country club. Put on your clothes." With a great deal of coaxing he dressed, got into the car and drove with us to the club. A small hill stretched between us from the parking lot to the dining room. "Dad," I said, "hold my arm and we'll walk up the hill together." He took one step, hesitated, then took another, hesitated again, and yet another. Halfway up the climb, he stopped—looked at me—smiled, and said, "You don't have to help me now. I can walk the rest of the way by myself." And he did. Six and a half years after he was supposed to succumb to his heart disease, he had beaten the odds and reversed most of the coronary arterial plaque. When he ultimately died from his cancer, he was no longer on heart medication. As a practicing traditional physician trained in radiology, I did not fully believe in miracles until it occurred in front of me with my own family. This incident was further nail in the coffin that medical "truths" are 100 percent valid. While new ideas are not quickly recognized and change is often resisted, the journey of my father's illness from the grave to the country club had me realize that old notions tend to persist in today's medicine. Everyone needs to keep looking at the difficulties in bringing innovations and unorthodox treatments to the medical marketplace in the field of cancer. People who said the earth revolves around the sun were burned as heretics 600 years ago. This inherent resistance to progress serves as RETHINKING FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE l 17 a template to see the struggle one might have in disseminating new concepts in cancer diagnosis and treatment. What would happen to the American Cancer Society if cancer was finally cured? The changing picture of what works to prevent heart attacks and why, emerged only after years of research that initially was met with disbelief. In 1986, Dr. Greg Brown of the University of Washington in Seattle published a paper showing heart attacks occurred in areas of coronary arteries where there was too little plaque to use a stent or to use bypass surgery. He was derided by many cardiologists. Around that time Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic started looking at patient's coronary arteries with a tiny ultrasound camera and proposed the idea that the "hard" plaque that obstructed arteries was not the plaque that caused heart attack. It was the "soft" plaque that was grew quickly and burst that eventually produced the fatal coronary thrombosis. He was also greeted with skepticism by his peers. In 1999, Dr. Waters from University of California received a similar reaction to his study of patients without chest pain referred for angioplasty. He found that patients who went on a cholesterol lowering diets had fewer heart attacks then those who had angioplasty (catheter opening of the arteries). Even worse was the finding by Dr. Topol who discovered that the procedure of placing a stent (tube that mechanically opens an area that is narrowed) in a patient's diseased arteries can actually cause minor heart attacks in about 4 percent of the patients. This adds up to a great deal of heart damage to people who chose a treatment to prevent it. In the year 2004 a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal reported on the reasons that certain cancer therapies do not work under standard medical principles as well as expected. According to the report, there are "stem" cells that create invasiveness in cancers. These cells will keep dividing and growing while other less resistant cancer cells die off after a few growth periods. This may explain the phenomenon of cancers regressing under radiotherapy, chemotherapy or hormonal therapy only to return as more aggressive cancers later. This re-occurrence was common in men treated with the Chinese herb mixture that was marketed under the name PC-SPES (P=prostate, C=cancer and "spes" is the Latin word for HOPE). This non-traditional oriental concoction shrunk the prostate, reduced an elevated PSA test to negligible values and stopped not only the cancer but many times arrested growth of the metastatic disease as well. The existence of cancer stem cells also explains tumor recurrence after surgery where the margins are considered clean. In many medical series it has been shown, if vigorously sought, that tumor cells may be hiding in the postoperative site. Indeed, work by PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 18 Dr. Fred Lee, inventor of the ultrasound guided prostate biopsy, showed that about half of the clinically localized cancers have actually spread outside the prostate at surgery or by specialized diagnostic imaging scans. When one realizes that a single cell missed by the microscope may eventually reform into an aggressive tumor, the rationale for curative surgery becomes unclear. Also defusing the need for immediate operative intervention is the observation that at least twenty-five percent of breast cancers and fifty percent of prostate cancers neither tend to grow nor metastasize. The question for the patient becomes not, "How should I treat this," but rather, "Should I do anything at all but monitor this from time to time?" This attitude is further bolstered by the growing awareness of an entity called "interval cancers" These rapidly growing tumors may arise spontaneously within months of a normal exam. The previous or ongoing treatment of a low grade tumor may give false hope to a patient who has just developed a high grade tumor and doesn't think he needs further observation. To further complicate matters, autopsy studies on men dying from automobile accidents in Boston demonstrated prostate cancers in some men in their 30's. More alarming is the knowledge many highly aggressive "interval cancers" do not cause PSA elevation and are mostly found in patients with low PSA levels. Prostate cancers have similarities to breast cancers in many aspects, since both organs are glands. Autopsy data from a Harvard Medical school study of women dying from automobile accidents revealed thirty-nine percent of women between the ages of forty to fifty years had breast cancer cells when only 1 percent of women would have been expected by usual clinical standards to have breast tumors. A multicenter mammogram study twelve years ago on Long Island women, where the breast cancer incidence is disproportionately high, showed that biopsies for malignant appearing calcifications on x-ray mammography revealed a greater percentage of microscopic cancers not in the areas suspected of being cancer, but rather in the unsuspected regions adjacent to the expected cancer sites. Another Harvard study presented to the New York Cancer Society at the 2005 Annual Meeting showed data demonstrating the breast is continually developing benign and malignant tumors. Most of these never become clinically significant. The message from these reports is: many cancers are not lethal. Half a century ago, pathologists found a high percentage of men without "clinical" prostate cancer to have malignant cells in the operative specimens of RETHINKING FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE l 19 surgery for relief of benign prostatic obstruction. In the absence of demonstrable tumor invasion, perhaps cancer formation should be considered a non-threatening aspect of normal body aging, or at worst, a chronic disease. Is there a way to determine whether a cancer is part of the natural aging process to be watched or whether the malignancy will have deadly consequences? In 1985, a prominent British physician, David Cosgrove, published a paper in the American Journal of Radiology demonstrating the presence of blood flows in breast cancers. After reading his article, I hopped on a plane and visited the Radiology Department at Hammersmith Hospital in London. There I observed the test first hand and envi- sioned future potential uses. I noted the new generation of sonogram equipment now had the capability to show pictures of blood vessels. The arteries and veins supplying a tumor could be clearly imaged. Moreover, the actual flowing blood in the cancer could be seen and velocity of flow of blood in the vessels accurately measured. At an international conference in Italy in 1997, Dr. Rodolfo Campani, an Italian radiologist specializing in studying the blood flows of cancers at the University of Pavia Medical Center, showed the criteria to differentiate malignant cancer vessels from benign tumor blood vessels. Benign vessels are few in number, smoothly outlined, follow straight courses and branch regularly. Malignant vessels are many in number, irregularly outlined, irregular in course and crooked in branching patterns. There are other blood velocity differences that are too technical for this book; however, it should be noted that malignant vessels have greater flow volumes at the end of the heart pumping cycle than benign vessels. These findings have been confirmed by other investigators at the 2006 World Congress of Interventional Oncology. Malignant blood vessels may be accurately and noninvasively detected by newer Doppler sonography techniques and advanced blood flow MRI protocols. ULTRASOUND AND SONOGRAPHY Sonar was invented by American industrialists for checking metal flaws in railroad ties. It was perfected by the US military for navigational use and under water scanning. Early medical uses included imaging disorders of the eye, heart and the developing fetus. As computers grew in sophistication, so did the applications of ultrasound, and now, it is often used as the first diagnostic test for many medical disorders. Doppler sonar created in 1972 gives pictures of flow movement in the human body in the same way it shows motion in the weather patterns (Doppler radar) that one sees on television weather reports. Doppler technology has been around for years. One patient told me that he designed and built missiles for the US Army at the White Sands Proving PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 20 Grounds in New Mexico in the 1950's. He related that the technique was so sensitive that it had to be modified continually and toned down considerably. Apparently, if an air conditioner was turned on a mile away, the missile's detection system would arm and prepare to fire. Indeed, one time a missile actually took off towards a moving train and followed it along the Santa Fe railroad tracks. Urologists in Japan, oncologists in England, surgeons in the Netherlands, chemotherapists in Belgium, ultrasonographers in Norway and radiologists in France, seeing the success of sonograms in diagnosing malignant tumors in the breast, turned their attention to the study of the prostate. They concluded that the vascular pattern shown by the Doppler technique held the key to the degree of malignancy. Four years ago, German surgeons at the University of Ulm, the largest bone tumor center in Europe, showed bone cancers that were highly malignant had high blood flows. The current clinical use of Doppler equipment in Europe is keeping patients from unnecessarily losing their arms and legs. The standard treatment for bone cancer is amputation of the entire limb. Bone tumors that demonstrate no vascularity or low blood flows are now watched or treated more conservatively. Dr. Nathalie Lassau, an interventional radiologist at the Institute de Cancerologie Gustav Roussy, an internationally known cancer center in Paris, published similar findings on the deadly skin cancer, melanoma. Her article in the American Journal of Radiology in 2002 revealed lethal skin cancers to be highly vascular and skin cancers that could be watched were not vascular. Dr. Lassau is currently investigating medicines to reduce blood flows to cancers in hope of less- ening their malignant consequences and has presented this work at numerous international meetings. Her finding 3D Doppler sonography correlates best with the pathologic process was highlighted at the 2006 JFR Meeting in Paris. Newer MRI imaging protocols are currently being fine tuned based on the proven high accuracy of the Doppler sonography data. The blood flow patterns depicted by Doppler sonography provide a way to quantitatively measure and serially monitor the severity of malignancy. Blood flow analysis can show which cancers are aggressive, since these have many vessels and which respond to treatment, since the size and number of tumor vessels decreases with successful therapies. Although this concept was described in the early 1990's in Europe, it was first mentioned in the American literature in 1996 at the American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting. Dr. E. Louvar from Detroit,s Henry Ford Hospital combined radiology and pathology studies to determine that the power Doppler flows in malignancies was related to the vessels that fed aggressive tumors. RETHINKING FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE l 21 Why is this important? Significantly higher Gleason scores (more dangerous tumors described later) were seen in cancer biopsies of high Doppler flow areas compared to cancers with no Doppler flows. Dr. D. Downey at John Robarts Research Institute of the University Hospital in Ontario, Canada has looked at vascular imaging techniques and 3-dimensional imaging of blood vessels. Blood vessels can be rendered in 3-D with angiography (high intensity dye injected into arteries), CT scanning (medium intensity dye), MR angiography (low intensity dye), 3-D color Doppler imaging and 3-D power Doppler imaging. In this article published from the American Journal of Radiology in 1995, he noted that power Doppler was better able to delineate the abnormal vessel architecture than color Doppler techniques in prostate cancers. A 2004 newsletter from the Prostate Cancer Research Institute reported that hormone therapy may change the way the pathologist interprets a cancer. Androgen deprivation therapy, (ADT) makes it more difficult to grade the tumor with the microscope. Men who have been on ADT should have a Doppler sonogram study to confirm the absence of residual disease. If there are areas of abnormal blood vessels, biopsy may be considered. Many patients who have been treated for cancer accept the presence of abnormal blood flows as proof of recurrence and choose treatments accordingly without further biopsies. Most patients use the amount of decrease in number of the visible blood vessels to represent the degree of success. Dr. Pam Unger, a prostate cancer pathology specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, mentioned in a personal communication that radiation changes also caused difficulties in reading the microscopic slides. Furthermore, pathologists generally don't look for blood vessels, and thus, do not routinely evaluate the vascular pattern in the specimens they interpret. Another problem with biopsy interpretation is the over-the-counter herbal medicine market. Many of the products for prostate health have some hormonal effects that shrink the prostate and improve symptoms. However, no one has determined if the pharmacologic properties of these alternative health treatments change the cells of the prostate to mimic cancer when the pathol- ogist studies them under a glass slide. Today, one must also consider the possible toxic effects on the prostate of medicines and supplements made outside the US. A 60 year old patient came to me who had been diagnosed via biopsy with high grade cancer. The biopsy was reviewed by several experts who agreed upon the serious nature of his problem. Unsatisfied, he had another urologist take a second biopsy, who confirmed his hopes that he indeed had a less malignant tumor. To settle the matter, he flew from southern California for clarification by the Doppler test. The use of the PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 22 sonogram, though non-invasive, was invaluable in succinctly detecting the level of malignancy of the tumor. The blood flow sonogram showed the majority of the tumor to be low grade (without blood vessels), but a critically located region near the capsule was high grade (vascular) and was beginning to break through the capsule of the prostate where it could more easily metastasize. This was confirmed by MRI exam and later by surgery when the tumor was completely removed. A 55 year old man came to me reluctantly because his biopsy was negative, but his PSA was steadily rising. He had the standard biopsy in which three biopsy samples are taken from each side of the midline of the gland, one each at the base, the mid-gland and the apex. The cancer was centered in the midline where the biopsy never reached. Yet another 70 year old man was told he had a high grade cancer, upon seeing the sonogram demonstrating the tumor measured 4 mm (1/8 inch) and was set away from the capsule of the prostate, he decided to watch it and see if it grew. Six months later it had not grown. Twelve months later showed no growth. Eighteen months later there was no change. He informed me that he is postponing his twenty four month follow up scan because he is now traveling around the world. A 52 year old from the Midwest had a PSA of 5 one year ago. Thirty one biopsies failed to disclose any cancer. Upon his visit to our center, a large anterior non palpable mass was clearly visible. It had broken through the capsule by this time. Ironically, his latest PSA had lowered to 3. Back in Michigan, he was persuaded by his urologist to be rebiopsied. This time a Gleason 4+3 was discovered. A 50 year old from the South was referred for local cryosurgery. He had 18 biopsies showing Gleason 4+4 on the left and was considering HIFU or focal cryosurgery to maintain his potency. All his biopsies on the right were benign. Upon digital rectal examination, I felt a mass on the right and told him so. "Doctor", he said, "the biopsy shows a tumor on the left, the right is normal" Upon seeing the large mass of abnormal blood vessels on the right and the penetration of the tumor through the right capsule and the comparatively few abnormal vessels on the left, he agreed to have an MRI exam. The special computerized MRI study confirmed bilateral tumors. He decided to try HIFU as a first line treatment as he and his young wife were intent upon expanding their family. They were relieved, however, that the tumor on the left was not as aggressive on the scans as the biopsy indicated and that they were chosing a bilateral treatment instead of a focal one-sided therapy. CHAPTER FOUR Practical Prostate Anatomy and Diagnosis A very basic urologic anatomy will be presented at this juncture to highlight the strategic benefits of the newer technologies: Fig. 4.1. Anatomy of prostate gland and capsule Important anatomic zones are the base of the prostate which is next to the bladder, the apex which is farthest from the bladder and the midgland located between the base and the apex. Like an avocado, the gland has an outer zone called the peripheral zone in which most cancers occur and a central zone (similar to the avocado pit) where few 24 PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 77 cancers occur and the growths that develop are usually benign. The nerves that are necessary for erection lie along the gland on both right and left side of the exterior of the prostate capsule. Fig. 4.2 Ultrasound anatomy of prostate Gleason Grading Numbers and Prognosis It is important to understand at the outset that biopsies may be random and sometimes difficult to interpret. Indeed, one of the reasons I attended the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology was to learn the discrepancy between what the microscopic analysis predicted and the actual outcome. It appears that the pathology reading is best correlated with the imaging findings on x-rays, CT, MRI, PET and ultrasound studies. This was particularly true in bone cancers, since the microscopic picture of a healing fracture is almost identical to a serious malignancy. I remember Dr. Jack Rabinowitz, Chief of Radiology at my residency program at The Brooklyn Hospital (and later Chief of Radiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York) in 1970 showing a surgeon that his working diagnosis of bone cancer was unsupported by the radiologic findings suggesting lymphoma (gland cancer) metastatic to the bone. The surgeon reviewed the case, decided against operating, and the patient was successfully treated medically instead. PRACTICAL PROSTATE ANATOMY AND DIAGNOSIS l 77 Tumor grade refers to the microscopic appearance of cancer tissue obtained after biopsy or surgery and is named for the 1966 inventor, Dr. Donald Gleason. The Prostate Cancer Research Institute Newsletter of 2002 states only ten laboratories in the United States are accurate in their interpretation of the Gleason Score (GS or Gleason Sum) which determines the invasiveness of cancers. The Prostate Cancer Research Institute Newsletter of 2006 notes that pathologists have changed their grading patterns to higher numbers over the last decade and there is ongoing discussion of changing the methodology to more clearly represent significant disease. Indeed, pathologists have acknowledged that the numbers from biopsies are often upgraded or downgraded when the actual gland is surgically removed and examined by microscopic sections. Tumor grading is defined as a property of cancer independent of tumor location found in either a biopsy or operative specimen. The GS primary grade is the most important pattern that the pathologist sees in the tumor under the microscope and must be greater than 50 percent of the total pattern. The secondary grade is the next most predominant pattern and must be at least 5 percent of the total pattern. The Gleason score is the sum of both patterns observed. Grades are from 1–5 with 5 being the most malignant and scores range from 2–10 with 10 being the most malignant. Newer investigation techniques used by modern pathologists are now showing that many cases of Gleason Sum=2 cancer were actually an abnormal benign growth (adenosis) which mimics cancers but is not actually malignant. In current practice, a Gleason 6 (3+3) or lower may be considered a low grade tumor while a higher number is often significantly more malignant. While prognosis or survival is often correlated with Gleason score, perhaps a better indicator would be the response of a tumor's vascularity to the current treatment regimen. A study from the National Cancer Institute on this subject was presented by Dr. Lucia in the May 2005 issue of The Journal of Urology. This indicated that the high grade cancers (Gleason 8–10) induced by finasteride were limited to one side rather than both sides of the prostate gland. Clearly more research must focus on the controversial area of cancers being aggravated by prescription medications. An international study by Dr. Yan Fong of Singapore and Professor Michael Marberger, Chief of Urology at the University Hospital of Vienna, Austria presented at the 100th American Urological Association 2005 Meeting discussed the effect of age on Gleason Scoring. In men under age 65 years, the accuracy of the initial needle biopsy was 22% when compared to the carefully reviewed radical prostatectomy surgical specimen in the pathology department. 64.6% of men younger than 65 had their Gleason Scores PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 26 revised upwards to a more malignant tumor while 13.4% had their Gleason Scores revised downward. On a happier note, a Stanford University Medical Center study presented at the same meeting by Dr. K. Lee and colleagues showed that a positive family history of prostate cancer is not associated with worse outcomes after radical prostatectomy. MRI OF THE PROSTATE There are several MRI formats for examining the prostate. MRI routinely refers to the image of signal intensity in the gland with the patient in the tube of the unit. EC-MRI uses an endorectal coil (EC) to improve resolution in the prostate. S-MRI or spectroscopic MRI involves analysis of the chemical composition of the prostate tissues with emphasis on the compound choline. DCE (DYNAMIC CONTRAST ENHANCED)-MRI uses the injection of a contrast agent gadolinium that reveals the blood flow within tumorous prostatic tissue. 3.0 Tesla (higher strength) and CAD-CE-MRI also referred to as Full Time Point (FTP) CE-MRI will be discussed at length in the last chapter. MRI shows cancer as a loss or decrease of the normal glandular prostatic tissue signal, however, other benign pathologies, such as calculi, hemorrhage (bleeding from recent biopsy), stones, BPH and inflammation, may also produce this effect. Some infiltrating types of cancer will not produce any visible changes. The 2007 data from University of California San Francisco shows a 78% sensitivity (few false negatives) and a 55% specificity (many false positives). MRI was originally used to stage the spread of cancer outside the prostate gland also denoted as ECE (extra capsular extension). UCSF data showed ECE high specificity (95%) but low sensitivity (38%). EC-MRI using the endorectal coil inflated as a balloon was designed to better define the capsule of the gland and the seminal vesicles. S-MRI was designed to detect intraglandular cancer and shows the aggression. The spectroscopic chemical analysis of cancer shows higher levels of choline and cit- rate than in normal prostatic tissues. The analysed sections of the prostate are divid- ed into a grid pattern of such a size that small cancers could be missed. While this technique appeared useful for larger tumors, a 2005 RADIOLOGY article noted an overall sensitivity of 56% for tumor detection. Currently S-MRI is practiced at few medical centers in the US and is losing popularity at many international academic facilities. A 2006 presentation by Dr. O. Rouviere from Lyon, France at the French Radiology Meeting highlighted the problem that S-MRI was not effective in analyzing tumor extension into the fatty tissues adjacent to the prostate gland. PRACTICAL PROSTATE ANATOMY AND DIAGNOSIS l 27 DCE-MRI is widely used and has improved specificity by about 80% according to the 2006 RADIOLOGY article by Drs. J. Futterer and J. Barentsz and sponsored by the Dutch Cancer Society. This group has developed a 3-D S-MRI system that improves the overall accuracy of standard S-MRI. An MRI exam shows the extent of cancer but not the activity. In patients successfully treated by hormones, the abnormality may still persist on the MRI picture; whereas, the Doppler test has the advantage of showing the blood flows are greatly reduced or completely absent. Spectroscopic MRI, (widely known as S-MRI) also designed to show activity, has not been shown to be as sensitive as physicians had hoped. Indeed, one physician colleague, who flew from New York City to San Francisco for this test, was told the S-MRI showed extensive cancer, however, twelve biopsies revealed no cancer. At the 2004 meeting of the New York Roentgen Society devoted to Prostate Cancer, Dr. Steven Eberhardt, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said that S-MRI was inaccurate in the presence of prostatitis because it produced false positive results. He went on to clarify the pro's and con's of regular MRI with the use of an endorectal coil mentioning that evaluation of the base is difficult due to the normal variation of anatomy of the prostate. Benign prostatic hypertrophy, commonly called BPH, often distorts the peripheral zone which is the most common site for cancer. Also, stones and hemorrhage (bleeding) from biopsies, and variations of the central prostatic zonal (internal) anatomy, could simulate cancers. Dr. Jelle O. Barentsz, Vice Chair of Research, at the University Medical Center Nijmegen, Netherlands, said that S-MRI results would be inaccurate following androgen deprivation therapy (hormone therapy, Chinese herbs, PC-Spes, etc) and disagreed that prostatitis was a problem. He also solved the problem of endorectal coil movement by injections (glucagons) to paralyze the colon for a full hour to complete the entire exam. One of my older patients, who had visited Dr. Barentsz in Holland, wryly observed that he did not have a normal bowel movement following the exam until 96 hours later. The consensus at the 2006 JFR Meeting was this: S-MRI would be discontinued in the future if the new generation of MRI units (3 Tesla with twice the strength of the standard 1.5 Tesla units) did not provide more accurate results. Endorectal coils (EC) inserted into the rectum to afford close up views of the prostate gland have other difficulties observed since they tend to migrate upwards into the looser and wider part of the bowel rather than remain fixed where the prostate narrows the rectum. This results in degraded images of the apex (part of the prostate closer to the narrow anus). Physicians are now learning that pressure on the urinary bladder from the abdominal wall will deform the PROSTATE CANCER DECODED l 28 prostate, and they observe that the same occurs with the flattening of the rectal border of the prostate by the endorectal coil. Additionally, this tube is by itself uncomfortable, promoting more patient motion and degrading the exam results. The stiller the patient remains and quieter the patient's insides, the better the MRI images turn out. My practice has optimal results without using an endorectal coil as long as the CE-MRI is simultaneously compared with the sonographic findings. Lastly, the new non invasive treatments may cause dilation of the intraprostatic urethra or abnormal kinking and narrowing. This area is distorted by the pressure of the endorectal coil rendering diagnosis of these conditions more difficult. Another problem with MRI exams is the variation of normal anatomy and the changes in the prostate formed by the commonplace benign enlargement called benign prostatic hypertrophy also known as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). It has been widely acknowledged that the internal anatomy of the prostate may vary from individual to individual. It was becoming obvious that benign enlargement made MRI exams more difficult for physicians in
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You can now invite anyone to meet at your favorite Starbucks.
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30 year old man | Sewalls Point, FL, USA | Seeking women 20-35 within 50 miles
The guy your mother warned you about!
I live by myself, I pay my own rent, I wear socks that match and I love my mom. I am a confident and attractive comedic person. I work in finance and I love my job! I believe that words are cheap, but actions speak much louder, so why bother? So, why not start with a bad stuff – I am impulsive and restless at times, I watched "Notebook" (don't tell anyone), and stay up way too late way too often. There is something about the nighttime that I find peaceful, if you will, which keeps me up working or hanging out aimlessly. Can you relate? I have little patience for flakes and fake people – those who smile while being angry on the inside, as I never know what they could have up their sleeve. How about you? What annoyed you today? And what made you weak in your knees from joy and pleasure? Food: I love food. Period. Movies: Jason Statham movies, any romantic comedy, a good classic, and anything with Will Ferrell in it - the guys a comedic genius! Six Things I Would Never do Without: 1) Laughter/ comedy 2) Exercise 3) Family 4) Friends 5) Food 6) That's none of your business ;) My family is very important to me and even though we don't get to see each other as often as I would like, there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. I have two beautiful nieces that mean the world to me and I intend on spoiling them every chance I get! On a typical Friday night I am: Trying a new/different restaurant. I like to keep it interesting and I'm always up for adventurous foods! You should message me if you are: Sexy, smart, fit and fun. I don't think that's too much to ask…lol.
Camping , Coffee and conversation , Business networking , Cooking , Dining out , Fishing/Hunting , Movies/Videos , Museums and art , Music and concerts , Exploring new areas , Nightclubs/Dancing , Performing arts , Playing sports , Travel/Sightseeing , Volunteering , Watching sports , Wine tasting
Baseball, Basketball, Dancing, Football, Golf, Other types of exercise, Running, Skiing, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis / Racquet sports, Walking / Hiking, Weights / Machines, Yoga
I exercise 5 or more times per week.
I like Dogs
Boston, London, Rome, Dubai, Caribbean, Central and South America...In the end, there's no other place quite like NYC.
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
Favorite things would include sushi, sports, good conversation, GQ magazine, the smell of fresh laundry, romantic comedies, a good book, traveling, my nieces, Michael Buble music, Frank Sinatra, beach, boating and most importantly my family!
I really enjoy traveling and exploring new areas, going out with friends for weekend drinks, hanging out on the beach, boating, fishing, rock climbing, surfing, basically any outdoor activity.
Honestly, the last book I read was "I hope they serve beer in hell" lol
Z{{Cta}} {{#if HasMoreInfo}} ?{{CtaSecondary}} {{/if}}
|What he is looking for
|5'10" (177cms)
|5'0" (152cms) to 5'9" (175cms)
|Body type:
|Athletic and toned
|Slender, About average, Athletic and toned
|No preference
|Light brown
|No preference
|No Way
|No Way, Occasionally
|Social Drinker
|Never, Social Drinker
|Financial / Accounting / Real Estate
|No preference
|I'll tell you later
|No preference
|Never Married
|Never Married
|Have kids:
|Yes, and they sometimes live at home, No, Yes, and they live away from home, Yes, and they live at home
|Wants kids:
|Definitely, Someday
|White / Caucasian
|Asian, Latino / Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, White / Caucasian, Other
|I'll tell you later
|No preference
|Arabic, English, French, Spanish
|No preference
|Bachelors degree
|Associates degree, Bachelors degree, Graduate degree, PhD / Post Doctoral

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When I try and load the "Extra Life" section in the GB roku app, the channel immediately crashes back to the main Roku menu/channel select
All other sections (quick looks, features, reviews, etc) have no issue and can load.
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When Marlyss Law first started playing the organ, computers took up whole rooms. Now one of her fellow organists is an iPad the size of a notebook....Read More
Spring Lake Park District 16 prepared for the continuing roll-out of iPads to each student recently, this time at Spring Lake Park High School, to help ensure student success in using the digital devices....Read More
A new wave of teaching reform has taken root at Westwood Middle School. ...Read More
The availability of funding for special education teachers and the release of a popular form of technology turned out to be perfect timing for students with severe disabilities at Northdale Middle School (NMS)....Read More
In its seventh year, the Anoka-Hennepin School District's Showcase of Excellence provides talent development students in grades one through five an opportunity to share their work with their families and the community. ...Read More
Some of the new board members are having problems downloading the St. Francis School District 15 documents they need to make their decisions and they want the board to consider purchasing either iPads or Netbooks for them....Read More


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[March 21, 2014]
SGI Awarded 5-Star Rating in CRN's 2014 Partner Program Guide
(ENP Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ENP Newswire - 21 March 2014 Release date- 20032014 - MILPITAS, Calif.- SGI, the trusted leader in high performance computing and Big Data, today announced it has been awarded a 5-Star rating in the CRN 2014 Partner Program Guide.
The annual directory is the definitive listing of technology vendors that service solution providers or provide products through the IT channel. The 5-Star Partner Program rating recognizes an elite subset of companies that offer solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs.
Through select, strategic channel partnerships around the globe, SGI ensures customers have access to high quality products and data center solutions designed to help businesses overcome their biggest high performance computing (HPC) and data-intensive computing challenges. SGI's channel partner program is instrumental in establishing its presence in both foreign and domestic markets, helping to champion the SGI brand with today's industry leaders.
To determine the 2014 5-Star recipients, The Channel Company's Research team assessed each vendor's application based on investments in program offerings, partner profitability, partner training, education and support, marketing programs and resources, sales support and communication.
'Solution providers have a lot of choices when it comes to selecting vendor partners. Identifying the right vendor, with the right technologies, and the right approach can make all the difference,' said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. 'Our annual Partner Program Guide and 5-Star rating recognizes the very best channel programs available in the market today to help solution providers determine which vendor delivers the best partner elements for their individual business goals.' 'To be recognized for the fifth year in a row as a 5-Star program in CRN's 2014 Partner Program Guide shows the inherent strength of our program,' said Jorge Titinger, president and CEO of SGI. 'We are committed to providing specialized partner programs that help our partners expand their market reach and improve their bottom line. Our channel network and focus on providing exceptional solutions to customers has been a key part of growing SGI's business as it continues to expand within the HPC and enterprise markets.' The 2014 Partner Program Guide will be featured on CRN.com and the 5-Star Partners listing will be highlighted in the April issue of CRN.
About SGI SGI, the trusted leader in high performance computing (HPC), is focused on helping customers solve their most demanding business and technology challenges by delivering technical computing, Big Data analytics, cloud computing, and petascale storage solutions that accelerate time to discovery, innovation, and profitability. Visit sgi.com (sgi.com/) for more information.
Connect with SGI on Twitter (@sgi_corp), YouTube (youtube.com/sgicorp), Facebook (facebook.com/sgiglobal) and LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/sgi).
About The Channel Company The Channel Company is the channel community's trusted authority for growth and innovation, with established brands including CRN, XChange Events, IPED, and SharedVue. For more than three decades, we have leveraged our proven and leading-edge platforms to deliver prescriptive sales and marketing solutions for the technology channel. The Channel Company provides Communication, Recruitment, Engagement, Enablement, Demand Generation and Intelligence services to drive technology partnerships. Learn more at www.thechannelcompany.com.
The Channel Company | Betzi Hanc | (508) 416-1182 | firstname.lastname@example.com Grayling Public Relations | Jessie Adams-Shore | (415) 593-1400 | email@example.com 2014 Silicon Graphics International Corp. All rights reserved. SGI and the SGI logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Silicon Graphics International Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders.
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text:
arabesque focuses on Turkey, Morocco and Lebanon, with the added bonus of a beautiful design and great photos.
1610s, "Moorish or Arabic ornamental design," from French arabesque (16c.), from Italian arabesco, from Arabo "Arab," with reference to Moorish architecture. As a ballet pose, first attested 1830. Musical sense, in reference to an ornamented theme, is from 1864, originally the title given by Robert Schumann to one of his piano pieces.