Combo of external beam & brachytherapy reduces prostate cancer metastasis : JAMA

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers diagnosed among men in the U.S and according to an estimate 161,000 men were diagnosed in 2017.There are many treatment options for men with prostate cancer including Surgery, Radiation therapy, Cryotherapy (cryosurgery) Hormone therapy and Chemotherapy.Dr.Daniel Krauss at the Beaumont, Royal Oak research site and associates compared the effectiveness of treatments for high-risk prostate cancer and found that treating patients with a combination of the external beam with brachytherapy resulted in a decline in metastatic cancer rates.The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Said Daniel Krauss, M.D., radiation oncologist and principal investigator at the Beaumont, Royal Oak research site, “Though retrospective, more than 1,800 very high-risk patients were relatively equally divided into treatment groups – primary surgery; external beam radiotherapy; and external beam with internal radiation (brachytherapy). Compared to other approaches, the combination of external beam and brachytherapy showed dramatic improvements in cancer mortality and metastatic disease rates – something radiation oncologists at Beaumont have suspected for some time.”

Beaumont has long been a pioneer in treating prostate cancer using brachytherapy.

Researchers found treating patients with a combination of the external beam with brachytherapy resulted in a decline in metastatic cancer rates from 25 to 8 percent. Metastatic cancer is cancer that has spread to a body site remote from where it started. Cancer mortality rates decreased from 12 percent in patients treated with primary surgery or external radiation alone, to 3 percent in patients treated with the combination of external radiation plus brachytherapy.

Brachytherapy is a form of radiation therapy that involves placing a radioactive source within the patient’s body at the site of cancer. The radioactive source used to destroy the cancer is delivered by devices. These devices are called implants.

Brachytherapy may be performed in combination with external beam radiation therapy to help destroy the main mass of tumor cells for certain types of cancer.

Dr. Krauss is a leading expert in treating prostate cancer with high-dose-rate brachytherapy. Depending on the type of prostate cancer, some patients can be treated entirely with two, or sometimes as little as one, minimally invasive brachytherapy treatment. He continues his research to further refine the treatment duration and establish an optimal treatment dose.