I don’t think I have previously covered this, but an article in the Journal of Urology is a good reminder of another modality that is not often discussed with patients. High Dose Rate brachytherapy is a method of treating cancer by inserting a highly radioactive seeds into the prostate via catheters and leaving them for a brief time to radiate the tumor. It is different from LDR brachytherapy or “seeds”, which you can read about here. In the LDR procedure, the seeds remain in the body for the rest of your life, while in the HDR methodology, they are inserted, and then removed several times, depending on the way the radiation oncologist wishes to plan the delivery of the radiation dose. As with LDR, HDR can be combined with external beam treatment and/or androgen deprivation. There are several centers with expertise in this technique, including our own, headed up by Dr. David Raben. Whether this is the “best” treatment for any individual, unfortunately, can’t be answered because of the lack of randomized studies. As I have said before,
“there must be 18 ways to destroy your prostate”, and each of them has advantages and disadvantages.
prost8blog 