Beyond the Abstract - Recent London Improvements in Curative Radiation Therapy for Relevant Early Prostate Cancer

BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) - The most effective form of treatment for localized prostate cancer remains a matter of great debate. There are no randomized controlled trials comparing radiotherapy with prostatectomy. Long-term outcome data from historical series, even those from the 1990s, have limited relevance as rapid advances in radiotherapy techniques have since permitted further dose escalation to the prostate. The published article describes recent advances in radiotherapy techniques and discusses the improved outcomes with regard to cure and toxicity.

It has been demonstrated in the last decade that delivering a conventionally fractionated dose above 72Gy to early prostate cancer improves cure rates. Whilst delivery of this dose is possible with the previous gold-standard modality (3D-conformal radiotherapy), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) allows the prostate and seminal vesicles to be irradiated to higher doses, delivered in distributions bespoke for the size and shape of the individual’s gland, with further reductions in dosage to surrounding tissues. Our team has compared two different methods of IMRT (Linac and Tomotherapy) and found they provide very similar dosimetry, hence equivalent efficacy.

source: UroToday