Last year alone, David Mitchell paid $16,525 for 12 little bottles of Pomalyst, one of the pricey medications that treat his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010.

The drugs have kept his cancer at bay. But their rapidly increasing costs so infuriated Mitchell that he was inspired to create an advocacy movement.

Patients for Affordable Drugs, which he founded in 2016, was instrumental in getting drug price reforms into the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Those changes are kicking in now, and Mitchell, 73, is an early beneficiary.

In January, he plunked down $3,308 for a Pomalyst refill “and that’s it,” he said. Under the law, he has no further responsibility for his drug costs this year — a savings of more than $13,000.

The law caps out-of-pocket spending on brand-name drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at about $3,500 in 2024. The patient cap for all drugs drops to $2,000 next year.

“From a selfish perspective, I feel great about it,” he said. But the payment cap will be “truly life-changing” for hundreds of thousands of other Medicare patients, Mitchell said.

President Joe Biden’s battle against high drug prices is mostly embodied in the IRA, as the law is known — a grab bag of measures intended to give Medicare patients immediate relief and, in the long term, to impose government controls on what pharmaceutical companies charge for their products. The law represents the most significant overhaul for the U.S. drug marketplace in decades.

With Election Day on the horizon, the president is trying to make sure voters know who was responsible. This month, the White House began a campaign to get the word out to seniors.

“The days where Americans pay two to three times what they pay for prescription drugs in other countries are ending,” Biden said in a Feb. 1 statement.

KFF polling indicates Biden has work to do. Just a quarter of adults were aware that the IRA includes provisions on drug prices in July, nearly a year after the president signed it. He isn’t helped by the name of the law, the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which says nothing about health care or drug costs.

Biden’s own estimate of drug price inflation is quite conservative: U.S. patients sometimes pay more than 10 times as much for their drugs compared with people in other countries. The popular weight loss drug Wegovy lists for $936 a month in the U.S., for example — and $83 in France.

Additional sections of the law provide free vaccines and $35-a-month insulin and federal subsidies to patients earning up to 150% of the federal poverty level, and require drugmakers to pay the government rebates for medicines whose prices rise faster than inflation. But the most controversial provision enables Medicare to negotiate prices for certain expensive drugs that have been on the market for at least nine years. It’s key to Biden’s attempt to weaken the drug industry’s grip.

Responding to Pressure

The impact of Medicare’s bargaining over drug prices for privately insured Americans remains unclear. States have taken additional steps, such as cutting copays for insulin for the privately insured.

However, insurers are increasing premiums in response to their higher costs under the IRA. Monthly premiums on traditional Medicare drug plans jumped to $48 from $40 this year, on average.

On Feb. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent pharmaceutical makers opening bids for the first 10 expensive drugs it selected for negotiation. The companies are responding to the bids — while filing nine lawsuits that aim to kill the negotiations altogether, arguing that limiting their profits will strangle the pipeline of lifesaving drugs. A federal court in Texas dismissed one of the suits on Feb. 12, without taking up the substantive legal issue over constitutionality.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the IRA’s drug pricing elements would save the federal government $237 billion over 10 years while reducing the number of drugs coming to market in that period by about two.

If the government prevails in the courts, new prices for those 10 drugs will be announced by September and take effect in 2026. The government will negotiate an additional 15 drugs for 2027, another 15 for 2028, and 20 more each year thereafter. CMS has been mum about the size of its offers, but AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot on Feb. 8 called the opening bid for his company’s drug Farxiga (which earned $2.8 billion in U.S. sales in fiscal year 2023) “relatively encouraging.”

Related Biden administration efforts, as well as legislation with bipartisan support, could complement the Inflation Reduction Act’s swing at drug prices.

The House and Senate have passed bills that require greater transparency and less self-serving behavior by pharmacy benefit managers, the secretive intermediaries that decide which drugs go on patients’ formularies, the lists detailing which prescriptions are available to health plan enrollees. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating anti-competitive action by leading PBMs, as well as drug company patenting tricks that slow the entry of cheaper drugs to the market.

‘Sending a Message’

Months after drug companies began suing to stop price negotiations, the Biden administration released a framework describing when it could “march in” and essentially seize drugs created through research funded by the National Institutes of Health if they are unreasonably priced.

The timing of the march-in announcement “suggests that it’s about sending a message” to the drug industry, said Robin Feldman, who leads the Center for Innovation at the University of California Law-San Francisco. And so, in a way, does the Inflation Reduction Act itself, she said.

“I have always thought that the IRA would reverberate well beyond the unlucky 10 and others that get pulled into the net later,” Feldman said. “Companies are likely to try to moderate their behavior to stay out of negotiations. I think of all the things going on as attempts to corral the market into more reasonable pathways.”

The IRA issues did not appear to be top of mind to most executives and investors as they gathered to make deals at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last month.

“I think the industry is navigating its way beyond this,” said Matthew Price, chief operating officer of Promontory Therapeutics, a cancer drug startup, in an interview there. The drugs up for negotiation “look to be assets that were already nearing the end of their patent life. So maybe the impact on revenues is less than feared. There’s alarm around this, but it was probably inevitable that a negotiation mechanism of some kind would have to come in.”

Investors generally appear sanguine about the impact of the law. A recent S&P Global report suggests “healthy revenue growth through 2027” for the pharmaceutical industry.

Back in Washington, many of the changes await action by the courts and Congress and could be shelved depending on the results of the fall election.

The restructuring of Medicare Part D, which covers most retail prescription drugs, is already lowering costs for many Medicare patients who spent more than $3,500 a year on their Part D drugs. In 2020 that was about 1.3 million patients, 200,000 of whom spent $5,000 or more out-of-pocket, according to KFF research.

“That’s real savings,” said Tricia Neuman, executive director of KFF’s Medicare policy program, “and it’s targeted to people who are really sick.”

Although the drug industry is spending millions to fight the IRA, the Part D portion of the bill could end up boosting their sales. While it forces the industry to further discount the highest-grossing drugs, the bill makes it easier for Medicare patients to pick up their medicines because they’ll be able to afford them, said Stacie Dusetzina, a Vanderbilt University School of Medicine researcher. She was the lead author of a 2022 study showing that cancer patients who didn’t get income subsidies were about half as likely to fill prescriptions.

States and foundations that help patients pay for their drugs will save money, enabling them to procure more drugs for more patients, said Gina Upchurch, the executive director of Senior PharmAssist, a Durham, North Carolina-based drug assistance program, and a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. “This is good news for the drug companies,” she said.

Relief for Patients

Lynn Scarfuto, 73, a retired nurse who lives on a fixed income in upstate New York, spent $1,157 for drugs last year, while most of her share of the $205,000 annual cost for the leukemia drug Imbruvica was paid by a charity, the Patient Access Network Foundation. This year, through the IRA, she’ll pay nothing because the foundation’s first monthly Imbruvica payment covered her entire responsibility. Imbruvica, marketed jointly by AbbVie and Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is one of the 10 drugs subject to Medicare negotiations.

“For Medicare patients, the Inflation Reduction Act is a great, wonderful thing,” Scarfuto said. “I hope the negotiation continues as they have promised, adding more drugs every year.”

Mitchell, a PR specialist who had worked with such clients as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and pharmaceutical giant J&J, went to an emergency room with severe back pain in November 2010 and discovered he had a cancer that had broken a vertebra and five ribs and left holes in his pelvis, skull, and forearm bones. He responded well to surgery and treatment but was shocked at the price of his drugs.

His Patients for Affordable Drugs group has become a powerful voice in Washington, engaging tens of thousands of patients, including Scarfuto, to tell their stories and lobby legislatures. The work is supported in part by millions in grants from Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy that has supported health care policies like lower drug prices, access to contraception, and solutions to the opioid epidemic.

“What got the IRA over the finish line in part was angry people who said we want something done with this,” Mitchell said. “Our patients gave voice to that.”

Arnold Ventures has provided funding for KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Many of cancer’s effects are visible — but the causes aren’t always so obvious.

There are hundreds of different types of cancer, and far more causes. 

"Cancer-causing agents, known as carcinogens, can be of various types and forms, working toward triggering mutations in the human body that lead to the development of cancer," said Dr. John Oertle, chief medical director at Envita Medical Centers in Scottsdale, Arizona.

THESE 8 HEALTH SCREENINGS SHOULD BE ON YOUR CALENDAR FOR 2024, ACCORDING TO DOCTORS

While some causes, such as tobacco use and UV radiation, are widely known for their harmful effects, there are many other hidden carcinogens in the environment that are equally harmful, the doctor told Fox News Digital.

"These hidden carcinogens are ubiquitous but often avoidable if people are aware of their inherent dangers," Oertle said.

"Environmental carcinogens often involve synthetic derivatives of industrial byproducts in addition to solvents, heavy metals, pesticides, radioisotopes and even carcinogenic microbes."

The doctor shared a list of some of these hidden carcinogens, their sources and the types of cancer they cause.

Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, described Oertle's list as "important."

"Even though we talk about potential carcinogens all the time, the ones mentioned in this list are the major players," he told Fox News Digital. 

"Though we are very familiar with the carcinogenic risks of tobacco, and UV light to the skin, others, like radon, are too frequently underestimated."

This carcinogen comes from cigarettes, leading to about 20% of all cancers and approximately 30% of cancer-related deaths in the country, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).

FOODS TO EAT, AND NOT EAT, TO PREVENT CANCER, ACCORDING TO A DOCTOR AND NUTRITIONIST

Tobacco can cause cancer of the mouth, nose, throat, larynx, trachea, esophagus, lungs, stomach, pancreas, liver, kidneys, ureters, bladder, colon, rectum and cervix, as well as leukemia, noted Oertle.

Organochlorines are pesticides that have been used in agriculture around the world since they were introduced in the 1940s, despite having high toxicity. 

While they’ve been largely banned in the U.S. due to health hazards, they are still used in other countries, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Organochlorines can potentially lead to breast, colorectal, pancreatic, prostate, lung, oral/nasopharyngeal, thyroid, adrenal and gallbladder cancer, as well as lymphoma, according to Oertle.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are chemicals found in coal, crude oil and gasoline, according to the CDC. 

They are emitted into the environment with the burning of coal, oil, gas, wood, garbage and tobacco.

ANNUAL BREAST CANCER SCREENINGS LINKED TO LOWER RISK OF DEATH, STUDY FINDS

PAHs can come from cigarette smoke, vehicular exhaust, roofing tar, occupational settings and pharmaceuticals, Oertle said.

Breast, skin, lung, bladder and gastrointestinal cancers can stem from exposure to these chemicals.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are chemicals emitted through the creation of paints, pharmaceuticals and refrigerants, among other products, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

They are also found in industrial solvents, petroleum fuels and dry cleaning agents.

VOCs are commonly found in the air, groundwater, cigarette smoke, automobile emissions and gasoline, Oertle warned.

The compounds can cause lung, nasopharyngeal, lymphohematopoietic and sinonasal cancers, as well as leukemia.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization (WHO) both classify ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun and tanning beds as a human carcinogen.

UV rays can cause a variety of skin cancers, including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.

TO REDUCE CANCER RISK, SKIP THE ALCOHOL, REPORT SUGGESTS: ‘NO SAFE AMOUNT’

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the U.S., affecting one in five Americans in their lifetimes and resulting in 9,500 diagnoses each day.

A radioactive gas, radon is a byproduct of uranium, thorium or radium breaking down in rocks, soil and groundwater, according to the EPA.

When radon seeps into buildings and homes, people can breathe it in — increasing their risk of leukemia, lymphoma, skin cancer, thyroid cancer, various sarcomas, lung cancer and breast cancer, Oertle said.

A mineral fiber in rock and soil, asbestos has historically been used in construction materials. 

Although some uses have been banned, it can still be found in insulation, roofing and siding shingles, vinyl floor tiles, heat-resistant fabrics and some other materials, per the EPA.

VACCINE FOR DEADLY SKIN CANCER SHOWS ‘GROUNDBREAKING’ RESULTS IN CLINICAL TRIAL

Oertle warned that asbestos exposure can increase the risk of lung, mesothelioma, gastrointestinal, colorectal, throat, kidney, esophagus and gallbladder cancers.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration defines cadmium as "a soft, malleable, bluish white metal found in zinc ores, and to a much lesser extent, in the cadmium mineral greenockite."

Cadmium can be found in paints, batteries and plastics, Oertle said.

The metal can be a factor in lung, prostate, pancreatic and renal cancers.

There are two types of this trace mineral, as noted on WebMD’s website.

One is trivalent chromium, which is not harmful to humans. The other type, hexavalent chromium, is considered toxic.

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Sources of the harmful chromium include chrome plating, welding, leather tanning and ferrochrome metals.

Inhalation of chromium, a known human carcinogen, has been shown to cause lung cancer in steel workers, per the CDC.

A heavy metal that is a known carcinogen, nickel is found in electroplating, circuitry, electroforming and batteries, noted Oertle.

Nickel has been linked to an increased risk of lung and nasal cancers, per the National Cancer Institute.

Overall, more than 1.9 million new cancer cases were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2023, and around 609,820 cancer-related deaths were reported, according to the ACS.

Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurologist and owner of Senolytix, a longevity-based health consultancy, pointed out that in addition to being aware of the various carcinogens and limiting exposure to them, it's also important to take measures to quell inflammation.

"Nearly all age-related diseases, of which cancer is one, are underpinned by low levels of inflammation," Osborn told Fox News Digital.

To reduce inflammation, the doctor recommends eating a low glycemic index diet rich in olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids from fish or flax, strength training regularly, getting adequate sleep and using a probiotic supplement.

"Show your body the right signals, and it will respond in kind – you’ll have your health," Osborn said. "Expose it to the wrong signals and you'll turn on the ‘oncogenes’ that cause cancer."

The doctor added, "Cancer, aside from those associated with a specific gene mutation (typically pediatric cancer), is an ‘environmental’ disease, period."

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Hello from ASH! Writing this Readout from a press room at the annual hematology confab here in San Diego. Today’s edition is chockfull of Vertex content, plus some extras from ASH and elsewhere.

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We cover all that and more this week on “The Readout LOUD,” STAT’s biotech podcast. We discuss why AbbVie is spending $10 billion on a cancer-focused company that spent four decades on the path to its first FDA approval, a deal with implications for biotech in 2023 and for a burgeoning area in oncology. We’ll also talk about the latest news in the life sciences, including safety concerns for CAR-T cancer treatment, the slumping industry job market, and some curious explanations for clinical failures.

Read the rest…

Under the agreement, AbbVie will pay $31.26 per share in cash for Immunogen, a nearly 100% premium to the company’s recent trading price. Central to the deal, expected to close in the middle of next year, is Elahere, an Immunogen product that won Food and Drug Administration approval for advanced ovarian cancer in 2022.

Elahere is among a surging class of cancer medicines called antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, which are designed to deliver a targeted dose of chemotherapy directly to tumor cells while sparing healthy tissues. AbbVie’s acquisition is the latest multibillion-dollar deal in the space, following Merck’s $22 billion agreement with ADC specialist Daiichi Sankyo and Pfizer’s $43 billion buyout of Seagen earlier this year.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

“Surprisingly fine,” said Conway-Anderson, a 36-year-old agroforestry professor at the University of Missouri. There was an 11-millimeter precancerous polyp that the doctors had discovered, but they’d snipped it out of her colon and recommended surveillance every three years. “Obviously, it’s big news to hear, but grateful this seems to be manageable. I’ll do it,” she said. “Then the bill came.”

She was being charged nearly $12,000 for the procedure after insurance. Conway-Anderson’s head spun. She couldn’t understand how it could cost so much, especially when she thought the colonoscopy was preventative for cancer and thus covered. “I was floored,” she said. “I was like I can’t pay this. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Better care for cancer patients may be on the horizon.

A new prescription medicine for treating cervical cancer has been showing positive results in clinical trials.

In phase 3 global trials, TIVDAK (tisotumab vedotin) was linked to a 30% overall reduction in the risk of death compared to chemotherapy.

BREAST CANCER BREAKTHROUGH: AI PREDICTS A THIRD OF CASES PRIOR TO DIAGNOSIS IN MAMMOGRAPHY STUDY

TIVDAK also demonstrated a 33% decrease in the risk of worsening disease or death.

In addition, the intravenous drug showed an improved objective response rate of 17.8% compared to chemotherapy at 5.2%.

The trial also measured the disease control rate, which is the percentage of patients who experience complete response, partial response or stable disease.

TIVDAK displayed a 75.9% disease control rate, while chemo showed a 58.2% rate.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Brian Slomovitz, director of gynecologic oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, emphasized the importance of these findings.

ULTRA-PROCESSED FOOD CONSUMPTION LINKED TO HIGHER RISK OF DEATH FROM OVARIAN, BREAST CANCERS: NEW STUDY

"To have an overall survival advantage in this disease is extremely, extremely rare," he said.

"It changes the second-line standard of care for this disease. Now, all patients who recur after first-line therapy should be considered for this therapy," Slomovitz added. "So it's a game-changer."

Slomovitz, who has been directly involved in the trials, explained that the new class of drugs attacks a certain protein on the cell, which allows chemotherapy to be delivered to the cell "in a precise fashion."

He said, "So, it doesn't give a lot of the peripheral side effects that we see with traditional chemotherapy."

Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, is not involved in the drug's development or testing, but he believes the drug shows promise as an effective treatment.

"Cervical cancer can be a very aggressive disease, difficult to diagnose early, with a poor prognosis when it is metastatic," he told Fox News Digital.

"It is generally treated with multiple drugs, including chemo and radiation, which can shrink the tumor but very often does not cure it," he added. "The new targeted therapy TIVDAK, which includes a monoclonal antibody against the tissue factor associated with the tumor, is an "effective additional and useful therapy with a high response rate."

TIVDAK has shown ocular side effects such as conjunctivitis (pink eye), peripheral neuropathy (weakness, numbness, and pain from nerve damage) and some bleeding, but Dr. Kathleen Moore, associate director of clinical research at Stephenson Cancer Center in Oklahoma City, said she felt that is manageable.

BREAST CANCER DRUG COULD HAVE POTENTIALLY SERIOUS SIDE EFFECT, NEW RESEARCH REVEALS

Moore has been administering TIVDAK to her patients since the FDA’s accelerated approval in 2021. 

She reported that they haven’t had a difficult time managing and offsetting side effects. Patients usually find relief by using prescription eye drops prior to beginning treatment and cold compresses to mitigate potential toxicity, Moore said.

"There's not been a single issue with a patient not being able to use the eyedrops and be compliant with all the mitigation strategies in order to obtain the benefit from this medication," she said.

Only 5% of patients have had to discontinue treatment due to side effects, Slomovitz reported.

OVARIAN CANCER COULD BE DETECTED EARLY WITH A NEW BLOOD TEST, STUDY FINDS

Chemotherapy, comparatively, shows a "much higher risk" of side effects, including anemia, nausea, hair loss and neutropenia, according to Slomovitz.

"We’re hoping that a treatment like [TIVDAK] is something that the patients prefer as opposed to the chemotherapy option," he said.

"As clinicians, we feel that the side effects are very manageable — and given the overall increase in efficacy, it's something that our patients are willing to have."

Moore mentioned that Oklahoma has "quite a bit of experience" with TIVDAK, since there is a large population of cervical cancer patients who present with "very advanced disease or metastatic disease at diagnosis" and require the treatment.

The doctor, who is also a drug developer, said her patients have done "very well" with the drug and appreciate its effectiveness and accessibility through insurance.

CERVICAL CANCER: WHAT ARE THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS?

"That's unheard of," she said. "In the past, we just did not have active medications and our patients really were left with ineffective therapies, and they just died."

Patients are recognizing that TIVDAK has worked to shrink their tumors, Moore said, which then leads to less pain and reduced dosage of medication.

"They’re feeling better because their disease is shrinking," she said.

TIVDAK has been used in practice since phase 2 trials led to accelerated approval by the FDA in the U.S.

The drug, however, could not earn full FDA approval until phase 3 was complete, Slomovitz noted.

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"We're hoping that the FDA approves this for a confirmatory trial in the setting, which would obviously have a great impact on the care of our patients," he said.

Slomovitz said he’s optimistic the FDA will give full approval for the drug in the "near future."

Both doctors shared their hopes for FDA drug clearance globally.

"We're starting to see, finally, improvements in therapies for patients who have advanced metastatic cervical cancer, all improving overall survival," Moore said. "So it is looking brighter."

Cervical cancer is the fourth most deadly cancer in female patients, according to Slomovitz.

Moore pointed out that the best way to avoid cervical cancer is to prevent it through annual screenings and vaccinations.

"This is an entirely preventable disease," she said. 

"The correct way to cure is to prevent, so that’s what we should be doing, too."

For more Health articles, visit foxnews.com/health

The most obvious partner would be Mass General Brigham, the large, not-for-profit system that operates the Boston hospital where Dana-Farber’s doctors currently treat cancer patients. But after seven years of negotiations with MGB’s top brass — including about 30 meetings in the past 10 months alone — she said it became clear that they weren’t interested.

“It would have been easier if MGB would have said, ‘Yes, we can do that with you,’” Glimcher told The Boston Globe’s editorial board on Tuesday. “That would have been the easiest path. But they refused over and over and over again.”

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Prostate cancer is a disease found in men that develops in the prostate gland. 

One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS), with older men more likely to develop the disease. 

Prostate cancer is second only to skin cancer as the most common cancer diagnosed in men, according to the source. 

OVARIAN CANCER SIGNS, SYMPTOMS, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OPTIONS

Symptoms of prostate cancer are typically very minimal, or not experienced at all. 

Below is all you need to know about prostate cancer.

Any type of cancer starts when cells grow out of control in certain parts of the body. 

Nearly every part of the body can be affected by cancerous cells, and they can then spread to other areas. 

RISKS, SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENTS FOR LUNG CANCER, THE DEADLIEST CANCER IN THE WORLD

Prostate cancer is a type of cancer found in men that begins in the prostate gland and can then grow beyond that in more severe cases. 

"The most common symptom is no symptom at all," Dr. Christopher Anderson, a urologist with New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, previously told Fox News Digital in 2017.

Some men may experience symptoms such as pain in their bones and weight loss when the cancer has already spread, Anderson said.

Dr. Philip Kantoff, a medical oncologist and chair of the department of medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, reiterated that the disease does not typically cause symptoms. 

Symptoms could instead be due to an enlarged or inflamed prostate, neither of which are cancerous.

Dr. Ketan Badani, vice chairman of urology at Mount Sinai Health System, said that "some patients may have vague urinary complaints," like having to urinate more frequently, and that there are no symptoms until the disease is advanced. 

The majority of men who have urinary issues do not have prostate cancer, he noted.

Men ages 60 to 74 are considered more at risk, according to the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program. 

Family history, "especially a first-degree relative like a father or brother" who has been diagnosed, is another concern, Badani added.

AN OVERVIEW OF BREAST CANCER, SYMPTOMS TO LOOK OUT FOR, WHEN TO START THINKING ABOUT ROUTINE SCREENINGS

African, Afro-Caribbean, South Asian and Hispanic men are more at risk for "more aggressive" forms of prostate cancer, he said.

For men of African descent, there is an increased risk of both prostate cancer diagnosis and dying from prostate cancer, Anderson said.

There are several lifestyle changes men can implement into their lives to potentially reduce their risk of prostate cancer. This includes maintaining a healthy weight, staying active and having a healthy diet, according to the ACS, such as one including very little red and processed meat and processed foods, but filled with lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. 

Most commonly, prostate cancer is adenocarcinomas, meaning it develops in the gland cells, according to ACS.

There are other types of prostate cancer, according to the source, but these are rare. 

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Other types are small cell carcinoma, neuroendocrine tumors, transitional cell carcinomas and sarcomas.

In general, prostate cancer grows very slowly. 

Many people who have it die from other causes without ever knowing that they had the cancer, according to the ACS.

Prostate cancer is curable, so long as it's diagnosed early enough, according to Mayo Clinic.

Treatment options will depend on the stage of the cancer and the overall health of the individual. For early prostate cancer, immediate treatment may not be needed, per the source. 

More severe cases of cancer are usually treated through radiation or surgery.

"A discussion with your physician is warranted before symptoms occur," Kantoff advised, adding that men should decide with their doctors if a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, which looks at the level of PSA in blood, is right for them.

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Badani recommended that men receive both annual digital rectal exams and PSA tests. Multiple PSA tests over time are a better indicator of potential concerns as opposed to a single test result, he explained.

If you are concerned you might have prostate cancer, speak to an internal medicine doctor or a urologist, Anderson recommended. He stressed that all patients with blood in their urine should see a urologist.

PSA screening has been a controversial topic in the past. In 2012, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommended against PSA screening when it said "there is moderate certainty that the benefits of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer do not outweigh the harms." 

In 2018, the task force said in its final recommendation that men ages 55 to 69 should discuss potential benefits and negatives of a PSA screening with their physician before undergoing the test. 

While a PSA screening has the potential to reduce the risk of death, negatives listed by the task force include "false-positive results that require additional testing and possible prostate biopsy; overdiagnosis and overtreatment; and treatment complications, such as incontinence and erectile dysfunction."

They do not recommend PSA screening in men ages 70 and above.

"Proper use of PSA is what I recommend from an early detection standpoint," Kantoff said.

Symptoms should not be the motivating factor for screening, he said, saying it should instead be a decision in one’s 40s about whether PSA testing should be done. He recommended that those with a family history or people of African American descent think about early detection.

An analysis of previous clinical trials published in 2017 said screening lessened the risk of dying from prostate cancer by 25 to 32% compared to men who did not get screened, a summary for patients explains online. 

The Associated Press contributed reporting, as did Andy Sahadeo and Zoe Szathmary. 

The lawsuit resurfaces longstanding concerns associated with hospitals buying up physician groups and then forcing those physicians to refer patients to the hospitals’ own facilities, even if that’s not in a patient’s best interest. Hospitals have increasingly acquired physician groups over the past 15 years, and in the process have entrenched monopoly positions for certain types of care by preventing patients from “leaking” to competitors.

Obtaining more market share and negotiating power isn’t the only incentive for hospitals to scoop up physicians. Oncology, in particular, is a lucrative specialty for hospitals to own. Revenue is immediately boosted because hospitals are able to charge more for the cancer doctors’ services in a hospital-owned clinic, even though those same services would be significantly cheaper in an independent clinic. Hospitals that participate in a federal drug discount program, known as 340B, also are able to buy expensive chemotherapy drugs for cheap while still billing insurers full freight.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…