Prostate Cancer Guide Reports More Men Opting For Radiation Therapy

Sarasota, FL, January 7 – The Executive Director of Sarasota’s Dattoli Cancer Center & Brachytherapy Research Institute, Donald Kaltenbach, announced publication of an updated Fifth Edition of his classic patient guidebook, Prostate Cancer: A Survivor’s Guide. With over 50,000 copies in print, the book has been expanded to include the most recent medical data on diagnosis and treatment of this disease, including 4-Dimensional Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (4D IG-IMRT) and Dynamic Adaptive Radiotherapy (DART). The book reports impressive results achieved at the Dattoli Cancer Center by Kaltenbach’s associate, Dr. Michael J. Dattoli, whose 14-year study of high risk prostate cancer patients was published in the American Cancer Society’s journal, Cancer (August 1, 2007).

According to Kaltenbach, the Survivor’s Guide is the first book to report that excellent rates of tumor control (greater than 80%) are possible even in high risk prostate cancer patients by utilizing a combination treatment protocol of external beam radiation (4D IG-IMRT) followed by brachytherapy. A former patient himself, Mr. Kaltenbach was treated in 1990 with brachytherapy, a noninvasive procedure using radioactive seed implants. “With increased awareness of advanced non-surgical therapies, more men are choosing not to go under the knife, because they want to preserve their quality of life by avoiding the risks of surgical complications such as incontinence and erectile dysfunction.”

WebWire

SenoRx Launches Contura MLB

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Jan. 17, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- SenoRx, Inc. (Nasdaq:SENO) today announced that it has launched Contura(tm), its Multi-Lumen Balloon (MLB) Catheter for delivering brachytherapy to the surgical margins following lumpectomy for breast cancer. The company had previously said that it intended to transition from user preference testing, which had expanded to 34 clinical sites by the end of 2007, to full commercial launch in January 2008.

Contura is one of a new class of devices which is designed to reduce radiation treatment time to five days from six to eight weeks in patients eligible for the treatment. SenoRx believes that the Contura MLB can play an important role in the shift from traditional whole breast radiation therapy to localized partial breast radiation therapy.

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Sagemark Announces Third Radiation Therapy Medical Center Venture

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Sagemark Companies Ltd. announced today that it has established Premier Oncology of Suffolk, LLC through which it will develop its third radiation therapy medical center venture. The new facility will feature a TomoTherapy® Hi-Art® system, one of the most advanced radiation therapy cancer treatment systems available.

Allen G. Meek, MD, Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stony Brook University Medical Center in Stony Brook, New York will serve as the Chief Medical Officer for the new facility, which will be located near the Stony Brook University Medical Center. Featured in each edition of the “Top Doctors: New York Metro Area” in the prestigious Castle Connolly medical guide since its inception ten years ago, Dr. Meek is a leading radiation oncologist in Suffolk County and will be supported in his efforts at the Company’s radiation therapy center by four of his fellow members of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stony Brook University Medical Center.

Business Wire

Non-radiation / Mammosite

Traditional external beam radiation therapy for breast cancer can span a period of five to seven weeks. That length of treatment time makes it tough for some patients to undergo radiation. There may be a more convenient alternative.

There are other methods of radiation that, for some patients, can decrease the time involved and make radiation a lot more manageable.

Dr. James Vopal, at the Breast Care Center of the Treasure Coast in Stuart, offers breast cancer patients a unique type of radiation called MammoSite.

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Several companies offering alternative radiation therapy

Terri Somers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

For decades, people with tumors in the head and neck had few treatment options that didn't require surgery. There was general radiation therapy, which had plenty of side effects such as hair loss and damage to healthy tissue.

And there was the Leskell Gamma Knife, a technology out of Sweden. It was the long-favored technology of radiologists and neurosurgeons because it applied a precisely focused beam of radiation at a tumor to destroy it, with little to no damage to surrounding tissue.

But capitalism, drugs and technology have started to change the market.

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Phoenix Definition Of Biochemical Failure Predicts For Overall Survival In Patients With Prostate Cancer

UroToday.com- The Phoenix definition of prostate cancer biochemical failure (BF) following radiotherapy (XRT) is a more robust determinant of patient outcome compared with the ASTRO definition according to a report in the online version of Cancer, by Dr. Abramowitz and colleagues.

The ASTRO definition of BF is 3 consecutive rises in the PSA after the post-treatment PSA nadir backdated to the midpoint between the nadir and the first rise. The Phoenix definition is the nadir PSA + 2. The present study compared the two definitions as determinants of distant metastasis (DM), cause-specific mortality (CSM), and overall mortality (OM).

MedicalNewsToday

Finding the Right Radiation Facility Is Critical for Cancer Patients

Newswise — Newly diagnosed cancer patients should spend as much time researching a radiation treatment facility as they would spend picking out a new car or a home.

“More than 50 percent of people diagnosed with cancer will have to undergo radiation therapy,” said Dr. E. Brian Butler, chief of radiation oncology at The Methodist Cancer Center in Houston. “It’s very important to do your homework because, as a cancer patient, this will be one of the most important decisions you will make.”

Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), pioneered by The Methodist Hospital in March, 1994, is a procedure that gives radiation oncologists the ability to shape and focus multiple small beams of radiation and deliver them directly to the tumor in a circular manner. This drastically reduces the amount of good tissue that is sometimes damaged during radiation therapy.

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Benefits of short-term hormonal therapy for men receiving radiation therapy for prostate cancer outweigh the risks

Researchers report that just four months of hormonal therapy before and with standard external beam radiation therapy slowed cancer growth by as much as eight years - especially the development of bone metastases - and increased survival in older men with potentially aggressive prostate cancer.

This "neoadjuvant" hormonal therapy may allow men most at risk of developing bone metastases avoid long-term hormonal therapy later on. Furthermore, the short-term hormonal therapy did not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease - a potential side effect of long-term hormonal therapy. The study is being published online January 2 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).

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Combo Therapy Cuts Prostate Cancer Death Rates

THURSDAY, Jan. 3 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that a common but controversial treatment for prostate cancer reduces long-term death rates without greatly boosting patients' risk of heart problems, as some specialists had feared.

In patients with severe cases of prostate cancer, a combination of testosterone-lowering drugs and radiation therapy appeared to lower the odds of dying of the disease over a 10-year period, from 36 percent to 23 percent.

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Varian Medical Systems Receives FDA 510(k) Clearance for RapidArc(TM) Radiotherapy Technology

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR - News) has received FDA 510(k) clearances for its RapidArc(TM) radiotherapy technology, a revolutionary advance that makes it possible to deliver image-guided, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) two to eight times faster and more precisely than is possible with conventional IMRT or helical tomotherapy.

"RapidArc represents a major medical advance that will change the way radiation therapy is planned and delivered," says Dow Wilson, president of Varian's Oncology Systems business. "Our primary goal with this product is to improve clinical outcomes. In addition, we discovered that we could simultaneously improve treatment efficiency significantly. RapidArc should make better-quality radiotherapy a more affordable, more accessible treatment option, and enable more cancer patients to receive a higher standard of care."

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