Major Study Shows Early Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer Extend Patient Life By Almost Two Years

Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer

Major Study Shows Early Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer Extend Patient Life By Almost Two Years

New study suggests that rendering chemotherapy when prostate cancer spreads outside the prostate could prolong patient life by an average of 22 months.

Presently, chemotherapy is normally applied only after hormone therapy is ineffective. But the new study discovered that when the two therapies were combined at the beginning of therapy, prostate cancer patients can lived longer with an average of 10 months.

Prostate cancer is a common disease in men, affecting approximately 41,000 men annually in UK and causing nearly 10,000 deaths per year.

The research run across UK and Switzerland with 2,962 prostate cancer patient participated in the tryout. Approximately 60 per cent of had cancer spread beyond the prostate. The remainders had high risk in locally advanced prostate cancer. Some patients were given six doses of docetaxol at the beginning during their trial.

The study found that when docetaxel chemotherapy was given to those with locally advanced cancer, they survived an average of six years and five months – ten months longer than those who were not given such drugs.

When chemotherapy was given to those with cancer which had spread outside the prostate, the men survived an average of five years and five months.

Dr Iain Frame, Director of Research at Prostate Cancer UK said: “The findings of this trial are potentially game-changing – we can’t wait to see the full results". This could potentially extend the lives of thousands of men with prostate cancer. 

Prof Malcolm Mason, from Cardiff University, added: "In prostate cancer it has been used at a much more advanced stage of the illness, for some years - now we know that this chemotherapy should be added earlier, in fact as soon as hormone therapy starts."

“Chemotherapy isn’t suitable for everyone, but all men who are well enough and who have prostate cancer which has spread, should be offered this combination of treatments,” said by Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician.

Peter Paul Yu, President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), where full findings will be presented, said: “This is the biggest trial of its kind and strongly suggests that adding chemotherapy to standard hormone therapy can extend the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer.”  

Presently, chemotherapy is used only as a last resort for advanced prostate cancer treatments. If chemotherapy is proven to have a a great deal of impact on prostate cancer patients survival rates when prescribed sooner and together with hormone therapy, it should be broght in to the clinic as soon as possible so that prostate cancer suffers can benefit without further delay.

Brachytherapy Prostate Cancer

Brachytherapy Prostate Cancer

What Is Brachytherapy For Prostate Cancer

Brachytherapy Prostate Cancer

Brachytherapy also known as prostate seed implants, is a kind of internal radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Radioactive brachytherapy implant seeds to the prostate cancer. Brachytherapy prostate cancer requires the use of ultrasound and template guided insertion of radioactive seeds into the gland. The brachytherapy seeds will wipe out the cancer cells in the prostate.

History of Brachytherapy Prostate Cancer

It was recorded that around the year 1901, not long after the uncovering of radioactivity, Pierre Curie from France is the 1st to suggests the use of radioactive isotopes for treating cancer. Approximately the same time, Alexander Graham Bell of America also suggested it which started the involvement in refining the science within the medical profession.  Henri-Alexandre Danlos of the Curie Institute in France and Robert Abbe of St. Luke's Memorial Hospital in New York are 2 initiators of brachytherapy, begin testing the idea of contracting the tumors by exposing it to radioactive materials.  These early evolutions offered involvement into the effects of radiotherapy.

In 1970's, numerous medical centers starts to employed brachytherapy to prostate cancer treatment.  Radioactive seeds were localised using an unfold operative method, whereby the the operating surgeon would apply a finger positioned in the rectum to distinguish the rough localisation of the tumor and direct the radioactive material accordingly. 

Following up of these early cases in the long run often found unsatisfactory results and the cancer control can not be predicted. These results were the consequence of technical unfitness to precisely lay the seeds and lack of decent means to judge the intensity of the prostate gland to formulate an effective dose during that time.

During the late 80's and early 90's the innovation of transrectal ultrasound came forth, providing better evaluation of the prostate.  This progression immediately dealt with the demand for better estimation of the prostate volume.  With the combination of the template guidance, or precise needle positioning of radioactive seeds, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT) technical advancement the issues of the early years were addressed. Advanced brachytherapy is reckon a viable treatment for prostate cancer.

Types of Brachytherapy for prostate cancer

There are two types of brachytherapy, high dose rate (hdr) brachytherapy prostate cancer and low dose rate (ldr) brachytherapy prostate cancer.

Low dose brachytherapy prostate cancer is more commonly used. During the process, brachytherapy seeds are implanted into the prostate cancer using a ultrasound guidance. The number of brachytherapy seeds and their placements are dictated by a computer generated therapy plan for individual patient. The seeds are place permanently in the prostate until it become expire after a few months.

High dose rate brachytherapy for prostate cancer is a newer therapy and requires the impermanent arrangement of hollow needles in the prostate. They are filled with a radioactive substance for few minutes and then extracted. This is replicated 2 to 3 more times over a period of several days.

Brachytherapy For Prostate Cancer Criteria

Brachytherapy may be an option for patients with lower Gleason score, lower PSA level and a tumour that has not outspread to other area of the body. If there is a higher likeliness that the prostate cancer may have spread to the surrounding tissues of the prostate, patients may be offered a short course of external beam radiotherapy before going through a brachytherapy implant. This combining therapy provides a more allowance to treat the tissue around the prostate.

Brachytherapy For Prostate Cancer Procedure

Brachytherapy prostate cancer is carried out in two stages:

Stage 1, is the volume study. A catheter is temporarily inserted into paient's urethra during the volume study under anaesthetic condition. This is to identify the structure. There might be slight discomfort during the first urination after the brachytherapy prostate cancer procedure.

Stage 2, is the implantation process of the brachytherapy seeds. The procedure is also executed under anaesthetic condition. Brachytherapy seeds are introduced under transrectal ultrasound guidance, using needles that go through through the skin of the perineum which is behind the scrotum. Each needle may render 2 to 6 seeds and, usually, 20 to 30 needles are necessary to have 80 to120 seeds implanted. Majority of the seeds inserted are woven into a filament of absorbable material to aid in preserving their position and will remain permanently in place.

A catheter is once again inserted into the urethra under anaesthetic condition which will remain for a few hours after the procedure.  X-rays are filmed throughout the brachytherapy prostate cancer procedure, to ascertain the position of the brachytherapy seeds.

Brachytherapy For Prostate cancer Precautions

Specific precautions is necessary where the patient's partner is pregnant at the time of implantation. The followings are general recommendations for the first two months after Brachytherapy seed implantation:

• To avoid sex for the 1st two weeks
• Subsequently after the 1st two weeks, advise to use a condom during sex to prevent the seed from passing during ejaculation
• Avoid close contact with pregnant women and children.
• Avoid children to sit on lap for long periods of time
• If travelling to other countries is unavoidable, consider carrying a mediacal card to indicates that you have had a prostate seed implant in case of any  radiation detectors encounter at checkpoints. .

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Proton radiotherapy delivers more accurate cancer treatment with less collateral damage

Proton Beam Therapy Prostate Cancer

This news was originally distributed via oncologynurseadvisor.com on 15 May 2015.

Researchers have succeeded in making a model of breathing movement that allows for the precise measurement of narrow beams to a dummy tumor by simulating the motion and physical properties of the chest anatomy in a model. This research was presented at the 3rd ESTRO (European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology) Forum in Barcelona, Spain.

Radiotherapy using protons can deliver more accurate treatment to a tumor while reducing the dose to surrounding tissue. However, in mobile organs such as the lung, precise targeting of the dose is difficult.

Rosalind Perrin, PhD, from the Centre for Proton Therapy at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland, described the method she and colleagues have developed to test the application of proton therapy to lung cancer. The method uses a delivery technique called rescanning, which helps to mitigate the effect of motion. The researchers are also working to develop practical ways to implement it in the clinic for patient treatments.

"This involved experiments using an advanced breathing model of the patient, a so-called anthropomorphic phantom, with integrated measurement devices to accurately measure the dose distribution. We found that our rescanning technique worked well to overcome the effect of motion on the dose delivered to the tumor, and for tumor motions of up to 1 cm," she said.

The model developed by the researchers was made up of a sphere representing a tumor moving within an inflating lung, enclosed in a rib cage complete with surrounding muscle and skin layers. The model can be programmed to move with breathing patterns specific to each patient.

Radiation dosage was measured during movement, and the researchers found that the rescanning technique allowed the application of clinically acceptable dose distribution to the tumor, and only a minimal dose to surrounding tissues.

Scanning proton therapy is an emerging technology in cancer therapy, in which a narrow particle beam, consisting of accelerated hydrogen nuclei, is scanned through the tumor and administers highly targeted radiation to the cancer cells. Because protons have a relatively large mass, the beam delivers most of its radiation dose towards the end of its path in tissue, and thus proton therapy can be designed to limit dose to surrounding tissues. 

Furthermore, a proton beam only penetrates the tissue up to a given depth, determined by its energy. So, compared with conventional radiotherapy techniques, the therapy allows a maximal dose to the tumor, while reducing the dose elsewhere.

However, for mobile tumors in the liver or lung, organ and tumor motion deteriorates the dose distribution because there may be a rift between the radiation delivery time-line and the time-line of the tumor motion: the interplay effect. The researchers have worked to overcome this problem by developing a new, state-of-the art delivery system, and the technology required by these advanced motion mitigation methods is now operational. The rescanning technique involves scanning the tumor several times by the proton beam.

"This makes it possible to average out the dose to the moving tumor, and also reduce the effect of motion on the dose delivered to it. Because of the sensitivity of the lung to radiation, as well as the proximity of the heart, esophagus, and spinal cord, it is particularly important to keep the radiation dose to surrounding tissues as low as possible in lung cancer," said Perrin.

Original source: http://www.oncologynurseadvisor.com/web-exclusives/proton-radiotherapy-delivers-more-accurate-cancer-treatment-with-less-collateral-damage/article/415035/

Proton Beam Therapy Prostate Cancer

Proton Beam Therapy Prostate Cancer

Proton beam therapy prostate cancer is a type of beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer treatments. Proton beam therapy is a form of radiation treatment that utilizes protons instead of x-rays to address cancer. A proton is a positively loaded atom with the basic unit of chemical elements, like hydrogen or oxygen. Protons is use to demolish cancer cells at high-power.

In America, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, but if it is detected early, prostate cancer has approximately 99% 5-year survival rate.

The initiative to use high powered protons for medical therapy was in year 1946. Within 10 years from then, proton treatment was started out for patients with certain cancers. Research and laboratory centers practical application had increased speedily following the next 30 years.

In 1974, proton beam therapy was initiatory used for cancer therapy in America at a physics research laboratory. The first United States of America hospital based proton facility started treating cancer patients in 1990. More than tens of thousands of people have received proton beam therapy in the U.S.A. since then. The number of proton therapy locations in United States or centers that offer this proton beam therapy is rising but is still consider small scale.

Prostate cancer happens when cancer cells in the prostate develop and manifold uncontrollably, damaging encompassing tissue and intervening with the normal role of the prostate. The prostate is found below the bladder, which is in front of the rectum, cancer cells can potentially disperse to other parts of the body

Conventional radiation treatment can cause damage to the tissue beside the tumor. The bladder and surrounding areas can cause bowel or urinary incontinence due to traditional prostate cancer treatments, which can greatly reduce any unnecessary side effects.

Proton beam therapy prostate cancer confines the radiation to the tumor itself, patients have a higher percentage of avoiding any urinary complications side effects, such as involuntary outflow.

One of the proton beam therapy bad results are that there's no follow up pathology comparing to surgery, PSA test is somehow the only way to know whether patient is cancer free. There could also be rectal side effects, since the front of the rectum suffers radiation during the procedure. A small percentage could get serious rectal issues that require further treatment, while some may suffer temporary constipation, etc.

A observational study shows that men treated with proton beams develops bowel problems, such as bleeding and blockages comparing to men who underwent conventional radiation, but since it is just observational, hence, it is not definitive.

Proton beam therapy for prostate cancer generally has little to no recovery time after therapy. The chances of having post treatment impotency is reduced. Most patients can endure the therapy and are capable to continue working, exercising and continue sexual activity after their proton beam therapy for prostate cancer.

Prostate Cancer Rates Higher In West of Ireland

Prostate Cancer Rates Higher In West of Ireland

This article was originally distributed via www.breakingnews.ie

There were more cases of prostate cancer registered in the west of Ireland than in the rest of the country between 1994 and 2012, a report has found.
 
A recent study by the National Cancer Registry, which tracked cancer rates during that time, has found higher numbers of men in western counties with the disease than in other parts of the country.
 
The map also reveals that lung cancer was significantly higher in Louth, Carlow, Kildare and Dublin.

Acting director of the Irish Cancer Directory, Dr Harry Comber, says men in the west are not necessarily more prone to prostate cancer.

Instead, he says, that a test to detect the disease was first rolled out in the east and has spread to other parts of the country in recent years, boosting detection rates.

"If you look at it closely, the test was initially used mostly in more affluent areas, more prosperous areas where people went to doctors privately and said :'I want a get a PSA test'," he said.

"But then gradually it just spread across the country and more men right across the country started to hear about this test, and they started to go to their GP and say: 'I want to have this test done'.".

Original source:http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/prostate-cancer-rates-higher-in-west-of-ireland-675708.html

Funds Raised To Purchase Prostate Cancer Probe

Funds Raised To Purchase Prostate Cancer Probe

This article was originally distributed via www.northernstar.com.au

AN initiative to raise funds for a probe which aids the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, has been pushed over the line with a recent charity night. 

The Trans-Perineal Probe/CAD-MRI Gala Dinner was held on April 18 at Lismore Workers Club, in a culmination of months of fundraising for the probe.

The initiative came from the Northern Director of Cancer Services, Professor Thomas Shakespeare; Executive Director of Lismore Base Hospital, Lynne Weir; Crackin' Cancer; the Northern Rivers Prostate Support groups and many regional groups, clubs, associations and individuals.

So many regional prostate cancer patients and their families will benefit from having a trans-perineal probe located within the North Coast Cancer Institute at Lismore Base Hospital, president of Crackin' Cancer, Marshall Fittler, said.

This was thanks to the generosity, compassion and kindness of those who donated, he said, who helped them raise the $34,000 needed for the probe.

The trans-perineal probe will cost $68,000, with the Northern Director of Cancer Services, Professor Thomas Shakespeare and Executive Director of Lismore Base Hospital, Lynne Weir, already having come to the agreement of a fifty-fifty split - if the community could raise $34,000, then Lismore Base Hospital would contribute the other $34,000.

With the community having achieved their fifty percent contribution, it's now just a matter of getting the wheels in motion.

With the target reached for the Trans-Perineal  Probe campaign, the team behind it has now focussed their sights on a campaign to get a CAD-MRI for the North Coast Cancer Care Unit at Lismore Base Hospital, to the value of $88,000-$99,000, and will help detect breast, live and prostate cancers.

Medical researchers are working at developing add-ons for other types of cancer for these machines as well.Crackin' Cancer, who will also be co-ordinating the CAD-MRI Campaign, have stated that, the community will not be raising the whole $99,000 and are hoping that the State Government will help with the funding of this equipment.

Original source: http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/funds-raised-purchase-prostate-cancer-probe/2628811/

Funds Raised To Purchase Prostate Cancer Probe