Treating Prostate Cancer With a ‘Scalpel Beam’ Guided by a GPS Probeis able to precisely target diseased tissue. A ‘single-dose’ therapy, advantageous for the patient and for the healthcare system struggling with waiting lists. The San Gerardo hospital in Monza describes the technique and announces a world record. In the Abrupt study, the results of which were published “in the most important international journal of radiotherapy”, the ‘International Journal of Radiation Oncology – Biology – Physics’, “for the first time the feasibility of a radiosurgery treatment” in prostate cancer with “administration of the dose in a single application has been demonstrated”, reports the IRCCS Brianza.
The cutting-edge technique
The specialists at San Gerardo used a cutting-edge technique that consists of positioning a probe housed inside a bladder catheter that works like a GPS system – explains a note – allowing the real-time localization of the target during the treatment and thus ensuring an ultraselective administration of the dose, which minimizes the irradiation of the surrounding healthy organs and consequently the risk of side effects. The probe, once the treatment is finished, is completely removed, thus constituting a non-permanent implant. The high precision guaranteed by this system allows the radiotherapy cycle, which is normally carried out with small doses every day to avoid damaging healthy organs, to be concentrated in a single, unique, application.
“In essence – the hospital summarizes – the study is the only one in the world in which patients with prostate cancer are treated with radiosurgery in a single application, rather than with a long cycle of radiotherapy, and has significant potential advantages both for patients and caregivers and for radiotherapy centers, which are thus able to clear waiting lists more quickly and ensure more timely care for all cancer patients who require radiotherapy”.
“The preliminary results obtained on 30 patients with a median follow-up of 18 months are very encouraging – says Stefano Arcangeli, director of Radiotherapy at the Fondazione Irccs San Gerardo dei Tintori in Monza and director of the School of Specialization in Radiotherapy at the University of Milan-Bicocca – and if confirmed in the long term, will have significant implications for the clear reduction in the number of admissions to the department. Simplifying the treatment makes it less stressful, improves people’s quality of life, helps them return to their social, family and professional lives sooner, and contributes to streamlining waiting lists”.
The patients who can benefit from this innovative strategy – it is specified in the note – are those affected by localized prostate cancer at unfavorable intermediate and high risk, candidates for a combination radio-hormone therapy treatment as an alternative to radical prostatectomy surgery.
#Prostate #Cancer #Scalpel #Ray #GPS #Treatment
