New radiation therapies keep advanced prostate cancer in check

Treatments for prostate cancer are always evolving, and now research is pointing to new ways of treating a cancer that has just begun to spread, or metastasize, after initial surgery or radiation. Doctors usually give hormonal therapies in these cases to block testosterone, which is a hormone that makes the cancer grow faster. But newer evidence shows that treating the metastatic tumors directly with radiation can produce better results. In March, researchers published the latest study that supports this approach. Based at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the team used a method for delivering powerful beams of high-dose radiation to very small cancers in the body. This approach is called stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR), and it can spare healthy tissues with remarkable precision. Doctors map out where to pinpoint the radiation in advance by putting patients into a computed tomography (CT) scanner that takes x-rays of the body from many different angles. During their study, the Johns Hopkins team recruited 54 men with three or fewer metastatic tumors. All the men had already undergone initial treatment for cancer while it was still in the prostate, and some had also been treated with hormonal therapy, though not within six months of being enrolled for the research. The men were 68 years old on average, and they were each randomly assigned to one of two groups: A third of the men were placed in an observation (control) group, meaning they recei...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Living With Prostate Cancer Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs