Table of Contents For This Page

Radiation Oncology/Prostate/Prostate Overview

More precise radiation therapy lets prostate cancer patients avoid erectile dysfunction

Radiation Oncology/Prostate/IMRT

Higher Radiation Dose Reduces Recurrence of Local Prostate Cancer

Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Types of Radiotherapy and Prostate Cancer

Radiation for Recurrent Prostate Cancer Appears to Improve Survival

IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy)

Statin Use Associated with Improved Outcome Of Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer

This page gives a lot of links and short reviews to get about all of the information one may want in the use of radiation for prostate cancer.

Radiation Oncology/Prostate/Prostate Overview

This is a paper that has lots of information and lots of links to get about any information you want on radiation.

Click "here" to read the complete paper.

More precise radiation therapy lets prostate cancer patients avoid erectile dysfunction

Researchers at the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) are using innovative techniques to help men with prostate cancer avoid erectile dysfunction after radiation treatment.

By using MRI scans in addition to CT scans, radiation oncologists can identify the blood vessels that control erectile function and plan treatment to target the prostate more precisely, sparing those nearby vessels. Results from an initial study with 25 patients appear in the January issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics.

Click "here" to read the complete paper.

Radiation Oncology/Prostate/IMRT

Links to a number of studies on Radiation by IMRT

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Higher Radiation Dose Reduces Recurrence of Local Prostate Cancer

Men with early-stage prostate cancer who got higher doses of radiation were half as likely to see their cancer return in five years as men who received the conventional dose. This is the first large trial to show a high-dose radiation benefit in the treatment of low-risk patients.

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Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Your doctor may recommend radiation therapy for your prostate cancer.  This reference summary reviews the benefits and risks of radiation therapy.

Click "here" to read the complete paper.

Types of Radiotherapy and Prostate Cancer

There are three types of common radiotherapies used as prostate cancer treatments: the conventional electron beam radiation therapy (EBRT), and the newer 3-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) and intensity modulated radiation (IMRT). Electron beam radiation therapy was the first external radiation therapy used as a prostate cancer treatment. The type of particle used for these three therapies is called photons which have no charge and no significant mass. Photons are the same type of energy used in diagnostic x-rays.

Click "here" to read the complete paper.

Radiation for Recurrent Prostate Cancer Appears to Improve Survival

Providing radiation therapy to men with rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels following radical prostatectomy improves survival, a new study suggests. Presenting at the 2008 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California, researchers showed that salvage radiotherapy reduced the risk of dying from prostate cancer by more than 60%. Investigators observed the greatest benefit in men with rapidly rising PSA levels, and found that the advantages of therapy appeared to persist even when administered up to 2 years after levels began to rise.

Click "here" to read the complete paper.

IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy)

IGRT is an advanced technology that allows radiation to be delivered to tumors with more precision than was traditionally possible. One of the challenges encountered when radiation is delivered to a tumor is that the tumor can move based on the patient's day to day position on the treatment table, as well as secondary to breathing. IGRT uses advanced imaging technology with on-board imaging (OBI).

For additional information click "here".

Statin Use Associated with Improved Outcome Of Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer

Researchers from Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have reported that men with localized prostate cancer taking statins have an improved PSA control compared to patients with similar stages of disease and identical radiation treatment not taking statins These results were reported at the 45th Annual American Society for Therapeutic radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) meeting in Salt Lake City.

These researchers looked at 905 men with T1-3 prostate cancer. Patients were stratified into three risk groups; low intermediate and high based on PSA, clinical stage and Gleason score. They reported that 153 men were taking statins at the time of diagnosis which represented 17% of the total population studied. They reported that ?The 5 year estimates of freedom from PSA recurrence were 96% for favorable, 85% for intermediate, and 75% for unfavorable risk groups.? Patients taking statins had a better PSA control than patients not taking statins. The differences were more marked when the favorable risk patients were excluded. Men with intermediate and high risk prostate cancer who were taking statins had an 18% improvement in PSA control compared to men not taking statins. In multivariate analyses they identified the following risk factors for improved PSA control in order of statistical significance: radiation dose, Gleason score, hypercholesterolemia, statin use, pretreatment PSA and T stage. The authors speculated that ?potential mechanisms possibly include statins acting as a radiosensitizer, offering a systemic therapy to complement radiotherapy, or these medications may interact biochemically with PSA, altering its accuracy as a surrogate marker for clinical disease progression.?

Comments: There have been suggestive but not convincing evidence that statins have antitumor activity in other cancers such as breast and hepatic. In order to be sure this activity is real and not a surrogate marker for another risk factor, appropriate randomized trials should be performed as this is potentially a very important observation given the low toxicity of statin administration.

Katz MO, Zelefsky MJ, Yamada Y, et al. Proceedings of the 45th Annual ASTRO meeting. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 2003.57; No.2, Supplement. Abstract number 1016,p s271.