Latest published results for CyberKnife Treatment option

lewvino said:

Thanks for providing the
Thanks for providing the link.

Indeed the treatment option of CyberKnife is promising for LOW RISK prostate Cancer patients.

In the article it states "The criteria for low-risk classification included a pre-treatment PSA of 10 ng/mL or less, Gleason score of 3+3 or lower and clinical stage T1c or T2a/b. Patients with a Gleason score of 3+4 were included if present in 2 or fewer cores and involving less than 5 mm aggregate tumor length"

All men facing prostate cancer need to study the treatment options carefully.
For me I was Gleason 4+3 Graded T2C with 5 of 12 cores finding cancer. This ruled out CyberKnife as a viable treatment option for me but am happy that the option is available for others!

Larry

tarhoosier said:

low risk risk
Success for low risk patients is inherent. ANY treatment, in fact, NO treatment,would show high success. What else have you got?

Kongo said:

What else?
I'm missing the body language from your post, tarhoosier, but if you're suggesting that since many low risk PCa treatment options frequently do well , then what is so special here, I believe you've overlooked some key points.

While low risk PCa (Gleason 6 or less, PSA less than 10, low involvement) have similar long term survival rates between AS, RP, brachytherapy, IMRT, and SBRT (CK), they DO NOT have the same side effects following treatment. Thanks to widespread testing, most men initially diagnosed in the United States today fall into the "low risk" category and deaths from prostate cancer have significantly decreased in the last two decades as a result of early treatment of these cases. While AS may potentially offer the least amount of potential side effects, we don't know, with the technology today, which of these low risk cancers will progress. All advanced cancers started out at some point as low risk.

The other thing that is "special" here is that this study shows a very high percentage of men who are free of biochemical recurrence or progression at five years. About a third of surgery patients see a biochemical recurrence and require follow-on treatment of one sort or another. While five years is not forever, it's a strong indication of this trend will continue.

So to me at least, the point of the promising results of these new technologies to treat early stage prostate cancer is that men have more and better choices to minimize the potential side effects of their treatment, improve their quality of life for however long they have left, and have an excellent probability that their cancer will never return. In my decision process, it came down to choosing a treatment method that minimized side effects while maximizing the potential for a long term cancer free life.

There are other benefits here as well that the abstract Vasco posted does not touch upon that I feel are noteworthy which involve the cost and convenience of this treatment. CK is significantly less expensive than either surgery or IMRT, recovery time is not a factor, and treatments are completed within a few days rather than over a few months. Since this procedure also has fewer and less severe side effects than other treatments, the long term costs over the life of the patient are also significantly reduced. As a nation facing exponentially rising health care costs in general and prostate cancer costs specifically, we should be embracing new treatment options that successfully treat cancer, reduce side effects, and lower overall insurance and Medicare costs.

One thing to be aware of regarding this study. It is only the first one with a 5-year median follow-up and has a relatively small number of patients. The CK treatments common today use a protocol that has evolved from what was used in this first study in terms of how the dosage is delivered, schedule of fraction treatment, and so forth. For example, the Stanford study found that giving the five fractional doses every other day instead of consecutively greatly reduced near term urinary issues that involved urgency and frequent urination. As a result of the improved protocols as a result of early results from this study, future trial results which should be forthcoming in the next year or so are promising to be even more impressive with respect to side effects.

As recently as a few years ago many naysayers downplayed SBRT as too new, "experimental," and without long term results. As more and more of these types of results emerge and awareness increases among the medical community and newly diagnosed patients, I expect that it will become an increasingly more frequent choice for men who are fortunate enough to have a pathology that this treatment can well address. Ongoing research may also afford men with more advanced cancers the opportunity for more treatment choices as well.

K