PROSTATE cancer is Australia’s most commonly diagnosed cancer. One in six men will be diagnosed by the time they turn 85.
Cancers are abnormal groups of cells that grow uncontrollably and start invading neighbouring sites.
They can also spread to other organs in the body. This is known as metastases.
Treatment of early disease, when cancer is confined to the original site, is focused on that single area, most often with surgery or radiation therapy. Treatment of advanced disease, when it has spread, often relies on treatments that can travel all around the body such as chemotherapy or immunotherapy.
A more advanced form of radiation therapy, called stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, may be able to treat both early and advanced cancers. So how does it work? And how does it compare to existing therapies?
IT DELIVERS A HIGHER DOSE TO A SMALLER TARGET
Stereotactic radiotherapy uses high doses of radiation to target and kill cancer cells. It uses newer machines that can deliver very focused radiation beams. Combined with advances in imaging and radiation planning software this allows clinicians to “track” and target cancers.
This results in such high precision – with a targeting accuracy less than 1mm – that cancers can be safely treated with minimal risk of damaging surrounding healthy organs.
Stereotactic radiotherapy has increasingly been used to treat cancer in the brain and lungs. But new data has shown it can also effectively treat prostate cancer.
WHAT DID THE NEW STUDY FIND?
A study published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine compared two groups of patients with early prostate cancer with a median age of 69.8 years. Half (433 participants) received five sessions of stereotactic radiation therapy, the other half (431 participants) received standard radiation therapy consisting of at least 20 sessions.
The researchers found no long-term difference in outcomes between the groups, with 95% of patients showing no evidence of disease five years after treatment. These cure rates are equivalent to patients who had their prostates surgically removed.
Early evidence suggests that stereotactic radiation therapy appears to be as effective, less onerous and less invasive than currently available treatment options.
