UCSF specialists lecture on cancer care, from surveillance to survivorship.
UCSF urologists, radiation oncologists and a cancer immunologist present from slides, often defining terms like PSA recurrence and advanced disease before they get to treatment choices. The recent episodes cover active surveillance, surgery and focal therapy, hormone and AR-targeted therapy, PSMA PET imaging, and the urinary and sexual side effects that can follow treatment.
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Cancer Frontiers (Video) is a feed of talks by UCSF specialists, and its recent episodes stay with one disease: prostate cancer. The format is the academic talk. A speaker presents from slides, credits colleagues whose slides they borrowed, and hands off to the next presenter, and in some sessions a moderator introduces each one. The titles show the range at a glance: 'Active Surveillance for Early-Stage Prostate Cancer', 'More on Localized Prostate Cancer', 'Overview: PSA Recurrent Prostate Cancer', 'Treatment of Advanced Prostate Cancer', 'Systemic Therapy Approaches for Advanced Prostate Cancer' and 'Prostate Cancer Survivorship: Urinary and Sexual Wellness'. Together they run from the first decision after diagnosis to life after treatment. Several speakers begin by pinning down their terms. Stephen Sane, a radiation oncologist, sets out how a PSA recurrence is defined after surgery or radiation, which factors raise its likelihood, and a tailored approach to clinical and imaging evaluation. Another talk defines advanced prostate cancer as any setting where local therapy can no longer control the disease, and notes that sensitive functional imaging such as PSMA PET has changed how that line is drawn. On early-stage disease, one speaker calls prostate cancer a spectrum with no hard demarcations between grades. In that talk, treatment decisions rest on three things: the cancer itself, the age and health of the patient, and the patient's own preferences. The same talk argues that active surveillance is safe, citing long-term outcomes from UCSF. A session moderated by Krista Chiu, an assistant professor of urology, covers localized treatment, starting with Peter Carroll, a urology professor and former chair of the department. That session covers prostatectomy, the goal of an undetectable PSA within weeks of surgery, and focal therapy with HIFU, which a speaker says depends on careful patient selection. The advanced-disease talks look ahead. One session describes advanced prostate cancer as something now managed more like a chronic disease. It then moves to theranostics, which pairs a diagnostic agent with a therapeutic one, and to immunotherapy, presented by a speaker from the cancer immunotherapy program. The speakers are open about uncertainty: the role of hormone therapy alongside radiation is called an open question, and for one agent still in phase three studies they say plainly that they are waiting on the results. There are lighter moments too, as when one speaker recalls giving a colleague a hard time for calling post-operative radiation straightforward. The survivorship talk speaks plainly about continence, describing a curve of improvement through the first year that eventually plateaus, with treatment options if leakage remains bothersome. Across all of it, the value is watching specialists reason: imaging, life expectancy and a patient's goals weighed together, often in consensus with colleagues from other specialties, before a plan is settled.
Made for: Suits a listener facing a prostate cancer decision, or supporting someone who is, who wants specialists' own explanations of PSA, imaging, surveillance and treatment trade-offs. Also suits someone who would rather hear clinicians reason through the evidence than read a simplified explainer.
What sets it apart: It presents the talks themselves: UCSF urologists, radiation oncologists and a cancer immunologist presenting from slides, defining their terms and citing their own institution's outcome data. The recent episodes follow one disease stage by stage instead of skimming across many.
University of California researchers explain the latest developments in the fight against cancer.
When PSA rises again, you want the questions behind the next treatment decision.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, practical guide to urinary recovery after prostate cancer treatment, with pelvic floor exercises and further help kept in view.
Urinary leakage after prostate cancer treatment anchors this practical, patient-facing review of why the type of incontinence matters before treatment choices are made.
A clear guide to returning PSA and why the next step depends on more than the number.
Stephen Sane keeps recurrent prostate cancer centered on the question that matters most after surgery or radiation: what a returning PSA may signal.
A clear conference-style tour of advanced prostate cancer care, from current standards to immunotherapy and therapies still being tested.
Advanced prostate cancer comes through here as a shifting field of care, not a single fixed pathway. The discussion frames advanced disease in more chronic-illness terms, with better outcomes, stronger therapies, and quality of life kept in view. Dr.
Oncology evidence translated into clinical decisions.
Critical care evidence, carefully talked through.
Clinical research, reduced to its practical signal.
Dr.
Stephen Sane, a UCSF radiation oncologist, defines PSA recurrence after surgery as “0.2 and then a secondary rise,” while radiation uses “nadir plus two.” He says recurrence risk rises with extraprostatic extension, seminal vesicle invasion, positive margins, higher Gleason score, and a PSA doubling time faster than 12 months.
A medical conference presentation on current standards of care for metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.
Dr.
Peter Carroll reports 10-year UCSF surveillance outcomes of 2% metastasis risk and less than 1% prostate-cancer mortality.
Dr.
A researcher defines advanced prostate cancer and introduces systemic therapy approaches including AR-targeted therapy.
A researcher discusses the often-overlooked impact of prostate cancer on bone health, covering bone functions, osteoporosis, and strategies to maintain bone health during treatment.
A radiation oncologist discusses definitions and treatments for prostate cancer recurrence after surgery or radiation.
Researchers discuss recent studies on diet, exercise, and healthy behaviors in relation to prostate cancer progression and mortality.