For prostate cancer, consider all your options
Vantage Oncology Expert Sheds Light on Prostate Cancer Radiation Treatments
Business Press, 4-11-05With a variety of options available, knowledge is important when facing the treatment of prostate cancer, one of the most prevalent cancers among men.
According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 30,000 men die from the disease each year. The good news is that the disease can be detected early through routine yearly exams and successfully treated. Men diagnosed with the disease are faced with the complicated task of educating themselves on the latest available primary treatment options which can include surgery, hormone therapy, internal radiation implants (brachytherapy) and external beam irradiation. The size and specific location of the cancer as well as lifestyle choices of the patient may determine which treatment option is best for an individual.
Alone or in combination with other treatment modalities, external beam radiation therapy is used in more than half of the men diagnosed with cancer to initially treat and control prostate cancer. Two of the most state-of-the-art external beam radiation therapies include Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) and Proton Beam Therapy. According to prostate cancer experts, both treatment modalities provide similar outcomes for prostate cancer patients.
IMRT is the more widely used radiation therapy for prostate cancer. It provides highly sophisticated radiotherapy utilizing computer-controlled x-ray linear accelerators to deliver radiation doses with high precision. Treatment is carefully planned using 3-D CT images of the patient in conjunction with computerized dose calculations to determine the dose intensity pattern that will best conform to the tumor shape. “Typically, a combination of several intensity-modulated fields coming from different beam directions produce a custom tailored radiation dose that maximizes tumor dose while also protecting adjacent normal tissues,” said Linas Kazlauskas, M.D., a radiation oncologist affiliated with Vantage Oncology, which has centers located in Riverside, San Bernardino and Wildomar.
Proton Beam Therapy is another form of irradiation therapy used to effectively treat prostate cancer patients. Proton beams are delivered differently than X-ray beams because they enter the body at a very low dose and gradually increase as the beam approaches and destroys the tumor. The radiation dose drops to zero as the beam exits the body, leaving the surrounding areas comparatively unaffected. “Dose for dose, its effectiveness at killing tumor cells is very similar to IMRT,” said Dr. Kazlauskas. “It’s an extremely elegant way to treat the prostate, but has not been widely adopted by leading medical centers due to its high cost and lack of superior compared to IMRT.”
Both of these external radiation therapy treatments are performed on an outpatient basis and provide similar survival rates for prostate cancer patients. They are non-invasive, relatively painless and have similar side effects, helping patients maintain a high quality of life during the treatment process. “They are both excellent ways of delivering high doses of radiation therapy,” said Dr. Kazlauskas, “as they both limit the radiation dose to surrounding areas. Bottom line, they are just different technological approaches to more effectively treat prostate cancer.”
For more information on the treatment of prostate cancer call (866) 964-8100.
