by Kiernan Mehan | Dec 28, 2025 | Advocacy, Cancer Resources, Press, Recent News
Empowered Patient Podcast: Virtual Support Groups Remove Barriers Encourage Sharing Honest Experiences to Fight Misinformation with Rick Davis, AnCan
AnCan founder, Rick Davis, was recently featured in the Empowered Patient Podcast with Karen Jagoda. This show explores the cutting edge of healthcare, highlighting innovations in generative AI and the latest breakthroughs in therapeutics and vaccines, and explores a shifting landscape where providers, pharma, and payers are prioritizing patient empowerment.
Rick explains, “The mission is to make each person and each patient a better advocate for themselves. That’s really what we try to do, and we do that through empowering patients with peer knowledge. We introduce patients to other peers who have been through what these people are facing right now, not only patients, but also their care partners, and through their experience, we hope that these patients and care partners will become more expert in managing their own situation.”
If you have 20 minutes, click here to listen to the podcast. If you’d like to read the conversation, click here for the transcript.
by Kiernan Mehan | Nov 17, 2025 | Advocacy
Hope Shifts in Cancer
“Many years ago, when I was facing similar realities, a very wise and understanding voice in cancer sat me down and said, “Hope shifts in cancer.” In the beginning, we are optimistic that our loved one will respond to treatment, and our HOPE is high….as some treatments work and then they don’t, our HOPE shifts to understanding what the outcome might be….and then as the cancer moves to overcome any possible response, HOPE shifts again..this time to comfort and peace for our loved one.”
–Laurie Singer (Care Partner & Pancreatic Cancer Support Group Moderator)
by CyberOptik | Sep 24, 2025
Interpreting Prostate Needle Biopsies in Today’s World
Interpreting Prostate Needle Biopsies in Today’s World
Dr. Jonathan Epstein, MD, Advanced Uropathology
Reliable biopsies are critical to selecting the right treatment at all stages of prostate cancer – we’re talking needle tissue, not blood, btw. Get it wrong and you may get too much or too little treatment.
Reading pathology is part art and part science! AnCan Advisory Board Member, Dr. Jonathan Epstein is globally acknowledged to have the best eye in the genitourinary pathology world. AnCan frequently refers men to him for a 2nd opinion. His presentation will include:
- Getting the most out of a 2nd Opinion
- The relevance of cribriform, intraductal, ductal, & small cells
- Biopsy report terms, like perineural invasion
- Role of AI – artificial intelligence
Featuring:
by Ben Nathanson | Aug 22, 2025 | Active Surveillance PCa, High Risk/Recurrent/Advanced, Low/Intermediate Prostate Cancer, mCRPC, mHSPC, nmCRPC, Prostate Cancer, Recent News, Uncategorized
Sharing AnCan with cancer researchers
What ASCO is to cancer doctors, AACR (American Association for Cancer Research) is to cancer researchers. When AACR held its annual convention in April, a small number of patient advocates were invited to participate as part of AACR’s Scientist-Survivor Program.
Representing AnCan, I was one of 42 advocates chosen from more than 200 applicants. The AACR has long recognized the need for patient involvement in cancer research — the SSP program began 28 years ago.
It’s a convention within a convention. Every day we heard from lucid and charismatic speakers, some of them presenting slides that they would later present at the convention. Talks included
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State of the Art of Precision Oncology – Edward Kim, a chief physician at City of Hope
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Very Early Cancer Detection Assays – Caris Life Sciences president David Spetzler
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Drug Discovery and Development – Paul Workman, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London
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Evolution of Resistance – Carlo Maley of Arizona State University
Each talk was inspiring, but my favorite was Workman’s. A legendary figure in cancer drug discovery, he argued that by probing deeply into how a drug works before clinical trials, researchers can identify in advance which patients are most likely to benefit. Many drugs written off as failures actually work remarkably well for a small subset of patients. Yet those patients will never get the treatment, because the drug was judged on its lack of effect in the wider population.
We were split into 6-person groups, each assigned a mentor scientist. In my group, that was Jeremy Mason, a young computational biologist at UCLA.
Advocates were required to present a poster at one of the general poster sessions. Mine showed AnCan’s unique benefit to cancer patients and others with chronic illness. Anchoring the poster was a quote from Dr. Paul Schellhammer, AnCan-er and past president of the American Urological Association:
I will comment that the level of diligence, expertise, and discussion rises to the level of an academic GU cancer conference / tumor board.
Most overwhelming for me was the passion and hard work of my fellow advocates, whose efforts included raising millions of dollars for research funding, helping create a research institute for a rare cancer, harnessing programming skills to codevelop AI with a cancer researcher, and initating an early-detection campaign for gay men at risk of anal cancer.
by Kiernan Mehan | Aug 13, 2025 | Low/Intermediate Prostate Cancer, Prostate Cancer
Who Should Consider HIFU as Treatment for Prostate Cancer?
Focal therapies, and HIFU specifically, have been proposed as alternative therapy for intermediate prostate cancer. For a certain subset of intermediate prostate cancer cases, ones where the cancer is limited to a specific region of the prostate, the idea of a localized treatment that only targets the cancer and does not treat the rest of the gland is a possibly appealing option. HIFU and other focal treatments have been documented to be able to ablate the cancer tissue while also offering reduced side effects and quicker recovery.
But does HIFU really live up to its promise? Research has delivered mixed results on the effectiveness of the treatment and the risk of recurrence. Some studies have found it to be non-inferior to surgery or radiation (“non-inferior” is medical terminology for “no worse than”). Others have reported reduced side effects but with higher recurrence rates. This leaves the patient with the question of whether the benefit is worth the risk.
The question of recurrence is an important one, and if you do some research, or ask various urologic oncologists, you will hear a wide range of rates of recurrence. So it was with great interest earlier this year that we learned UCSF was publishing results of a study they conducted to assess the use of HIFU and the risk of recurrence.
For anyone considering HIFU as their treatment option, the report should be required reading. The report confirmed the desired reduction in side effects. But the recurrence results should be taken seriously. Their patients had an overall 54% recurrence rate, with a 41% in-field recurrence rate after 12 months. (“In-field recurrence” suggests that HIFU did not successfully eliminate the target cancer.) The study goes on to explore why they think their results were higher than some previous studies.
The study also explores the correlation between pretreatment characteristics and ultimate results, suggesting that tight screening should be used in determining appropriate candidates.
For me, the report was very interesting as it hits very close to home. Just 12 months ago I had been offered HIFU by my doctor as his recommended treatment option. Luckily for me, I learned to ask enough questions and took the time to research the risks. And in the end, I wasn’t ready to accept the risk of recurrence and chose to go for a more aggressive approach to reduce my risk of having to treat again.
So if you are going to consider HIFU as a treatment option, be prepared to ask yourself the old Dirty Harry line: “Do You Feel Lucky?”
-Stuart Jordan
For more information or questions, please contact stuart@ancan.org.
