NEW YORK, Jun 29 (Reuters Health) - Brachytherapy, the implantation of small
radioactive seeds, provides excellent control of prostate cancer with few
long-term failures in patients whose cancer has not spread beyond the prostate
gland, report US researchers.
"Encouraging reports of long-term disease-free survival demonstrated an
equal or better outcome compared with more traditional treatments such as
radical surgery for many men with clinically localized prostate carcinoma,"
explained Dr. Haakon Ragde, of the Northwest Prostate Institute, in Seattle,
Washington, in a news release.
Ragde and his associates studied the effects of brachytherapy in 229
prostate cancer patients, 147 of whom were low-risk for cancer spread and 82 of
whom faced a higher risk.
Surviving patients were followed for at least 122 months, the authors
report. Only four patients died from prostate cancer, which translates into a
10-year survival rate of 98%.
By the 10-year evaluation point, 70% of the patients had shown no evidence
of prostate cancer by examination or by measurement of PSA (prostate-specific
antigen) levels, the report indicates.
Results differed somewhat in the two risk groups, according to a report in
the July 1st issue of the journal Cancer. The low-risk group, which received
only brachytherapy, had a 66% control rate at 10 years. The high-risk group,
which received brachytherapy plus external radiation therapy, showed a 79%
control rate.
Most disease recurrences occurred within the first 5 years of treatment, the
researchers note. After 5 years, the failure rate averaged only 1.5% per year.
"The addition of 77 more patients to our ongoing analysis of prostate
brachytherapy with up to 12 years of follow-up confirms the previously
documented excellent results for men with localized prostate carcinoma," the
authors conclude.
External radiation therapy appears to provide added benefits for some
high-risk patients. "However," they add, "we do not yet feel that the data
support the addition of external beam radiation to every brachytherapy patient."
