Shorter course of radiation therapy effective in treating men with prostate cancer

A new UCLA-led study shows that men with low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer can safely undergo higher doses of radiation over a significantly shorter period of time and still have the same, successful outcomes as from a much longer course of treatment.This type of radiation, known as stereotactic body radiotherapy, is a form of external beam radiation therapy and reduces the duration of treatment from 45 days to four to five days. The approach has been in use since 2000, but has not yet been widely adopted because of concerns over how safe and effective this approach would be in the long term.“Most men with low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer undergo conventional radiation, which requires them to come in daily for treatment and takes an average of nine weeks to complete,” said lead author Dr. Amar Kishan, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the David Geffen School of M edicine at UCLA and researcher at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “That can be very burdensome on a patient and be a huge interruption in their life. With the improvements being made to modern technology, we’ve found that using stereotactic body radiotherapy, which has a higher dose of radiation, can safely and effectively be done in a much shorter timeframe w ithout additional toxicity or compromising any chance of a cure.”The UCLA research team analyzed data from 2,142 men with low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer across multiple institutions who were treate...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news