CAROLINA REGIONAL CANCER CENTER ANNOUNCES PILOT PROGRAM FOR ADAPTIVE TREATMENT PLANNING TO FURTHER EXPAND THE BENEFITS OF ITS TOMOTHERAPY HI•ART TREATMENT SYSTEM

Carolina Regional Cancer Center (CRCC), an affiliate of MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, has initiated a Pilot Program to study the benefits of Adaptive Treatment Planning utilizing the TomoTherapy® Hi•Art® Treatment System, one of the most effective forms of radiation treatment available.  Adaptive tr... [read more]

CAROLINA REGIONAL CANCER CENTER WELCOMES NEWS AS AFFILIATE, MUSC HOLLINGS CANCER CENTER, RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS DESIGNATION BY NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE

Carolina Regional Cancer Center (CRCC), affiliated with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center (HCC), announced today that HCC recently received designation by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as one of the top cancer research centers in the country. HCC is one of only 64 other can... [read more]

Prostate Cancer Side Effects

With the use of 3-D conformal treatment, we have been able to increase the radiation dose that we can deliver to the prostate while causing only mild, temporary irritative-type side effects, such as mild diarrhea or increased urinary frequency in some patients, while many patients have no side effects at all.

While there is always a risk of more severe side effects, such as those related to damage of the organs and tissues that the radiation beam is traveling through, they are extremely unlikely to happen and these are problems that, for practical purposes, are not seen on a daily basis. Notwithstanding this, we all must realize that such problems can occur.

IMRT EFFECTIVENESS IN TREATING PROSTATE CANCER

One of the best reports confirming the effectiveness of IMRT was published by The American Urological Association in the peer-reviewed Journal of Urology. The article was titled "HIGH-DOSE RADIATION DELIVERED BY INTENSITY MODULATED CONFORMAL RADIOTHERAPY IMPROVES THE OUTCOME OF LOCALIZED PROSTATE CANCER." This paper presented the results of a very large, very long study done at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The physician authors treated and followed 1,100 patients with early to locally advanced stage prostate cancer from October 1988 to December 1998.

All patients were treated with either 3-D conformal external beam radiation treatment or intensity-modulated radiation therapy. Results were measured at five years in terms of the PSA relapse-free survival rate, and patients were grouped into favorable, intermediate and unfavorable groups in terms of risk for recurrence. The radiation dose was the most important variable affecting the PSA relapse-free survival rate in each prognostic group. The higher the radiation dose, the higher the survival rate.

Treatment with IMRT significantly decreased the incidence of significant rectal toxicity in the patients getting high radiation doses. The degree of reduction was striking, a seven-fold reduction as compared to those patients treated to the same dose with 3-D conformal radiation treatment. The authors' conclusions indicated that sophisticated conformal radiotherapy techniques with high-dose, 3-D conformal and IMRT, improved the biochemical outcome (PSA results) in patients with all stages of prostate cancer -- favorable, intermediate and unfavorable.

IMRT presents the further advantage of minimizing bladder and rectal toxicity and represents the treatment delivery approach with the most favorable risk to benefit ratio. The peer-reviewed literature is becoming filled with articles such as the one outlined above.