Health Rounds: Exercise helps with sexual dysfunction after prostate cancer treatment

HLB

01/08/2023 18:41

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    By Nancy Lapid
       Aug 1 (Reuters) - 
    Hello Health Rounds Readers! Today we lead off with an
encouraging study showing that men who develop sexual
dysfunction after treatment for prostate cancer experienced
improvements by taking part in a supervised exercise program. 
We also report on a late-stage study in which a new drug
combination extended the survival of patients with inoperable
liver cancer. Finally, we share findings from U.S. public health
officials who want primary care physicians to become more aware
that some tick bites are causing allergies to red meat at an
increasing rate. 

    Exercise improves sexual dysfunction after prostate cancer
    Patients with sexual dysfunction after prostate cancer
treatment can immediately benefit from supervised exercise
interventions to improve their sexual health, researchers said. 
    They randomly assigned 112 patients to receive six months of
supervised, group-based resistance and aerobic exercise three
times a week; the same exercise program plus a brief
self-managed psychosexual intervention; or usual care.
    Both exercise groups reported improved erectile function and
intercourse satisfaction compared with the usual care group,
study leader Daniel Galvao from Edith Cowan University in Perth,
Australia will report later this week at the 2023 American
Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Breakthrough Meeting in
Yokohama, Japan.
    Exercise also prevented an increase in fat mass and improved
upper and lower body muscle strength and other physical function
outcomes.
    The psychosexual therapy, which involved one brief session
with a counselor plus self-help materials on erectile
dysfunction and stress management, resulted in no additional
improvements.
    More research is needed to see how long the effects last,
the researchers said. Meanwhile, Galvao said in a statement that
“exercise should be considered as an integral part of treatment
for prostate cancer."

    Drug combo improves survival with inoperable liver cancer
    An experimental drug combination is moving closer to
becoming a new initial treatment for inoperable liver cancer
after it significantly improved survival in a late stage trial
of patients with newly diagnosed hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)
not eligible for surgery, researchers reported.
    The combination of camrelizumab plus rivoceranib being
developed by HLB Inc's  028300.KQ  U.S. subsidiary Elevar
Therapeutics showed a statistically significant and clinically
meaningful benefit in helping patients live longer compared with
Bayer's  BAYGn.DE  Nexavar (sorafenib), the current standard of
care.
    The combination also helped the disease to remain stable
without progressing for longer, according to a report published
in The Lancet.
    In the 543-patient trial, half of those who received the
combination therapy lived at least 22.1 months, while median
overall survival with Nexavar was 15.2 months.
    “To our knowledge, the median overall survival of 22.1
months in the camrelizumab/rivoceranib group was the longest one
observed for any systemic treatment in global Phase 3 trials in
unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma,” the researchers wrote.
    Progression-free survival, or the time until the cancer
began to worsen, was an average of 5.6 months in the
camrelizumab/rivoceranib group, versus 3.7 months for Nexavar. 
    The new drug did not present any notable safety issues, the
researchers said.
    In mid-July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted
Elevar’s application for rivoceranib in combination with
camrelizumab as a first-line, or initial, treatment for
inoperable HCC. 
    
    U.S. clinicians unfamiliar with tick-borne red meat allergy
    Many U.S. primary care providers are ill equipped to
recognize and treat increasingly common allergic reactions to
red meat and other food products from pigs, goats, cows and
sheep, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).
    In the CDC’s nationwide survey of 1,500 primary care
providers, 42% were not aware of so called alpha-gal syndrome,
also called red meat allergy or tick bite meat allergy. Another
35% were not confident in their ability to diagnose or manage it
in their patients, researchers wrote on Friday in the CDC’s
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 
    Alpha-gal is a sugar molecule found in nonprimate mammals.
Ticks ingest alpha-gal when they bite into these mammals and 
transmit it by biting people.
    Once in the human bloodstream, alpha-gal triggers a
potentially life-threatening allergic response from the immune
system if the person eats red meat or other products containing
alpha-gal, such as milk or cheese, or gelatin-coated
medications.
    Earlier research suggests that nearly 80% of patients go
undiagnosed for more than seven years, the CDC researchers said.
    A second study published in the same issue found the annual
number of confirmed new diagnoses of alpha-gal syndrome in the
United States rose from 13,371 in 2017 to 18,885 in 2021. Most
cases occurred in areas with lone star ticks, particularly
throughout Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Suffolk County, New
York, although clusters of cases also occurred in areas without
known established populations of the insects.
    “The burden of alpha-gal syndrome in the United States could
be substantial given the large percentage of cases suspected to
be going undiagnosed due to non-specific and inconsistent
symptoms, challenges seeking healthcare, and lack of clinician
awareness,” Dr. Johanna Salzer, senior author on both papers,
said in a statement.
    Companies developing pig organs for human transplantation
and other medical procedures have managed to genetically
engineer the animals to be alpha-gal free. In 2020, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration approved Revivicor’s GalSafe pigs
to be used both for human food and therapeutics. 
   

 (Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Additional reporting by Shawana
Alleyne-Morris; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
 ((Nancy.Lapid@thomsonreuters.com;))