WASHINGTON –– A large, national study examining a radiation treatment for prostate cancer––popular because it delivers a high dose of therapy in a very short time frame––supports its routine use. 

The study, conducted at cancer centers around the United States including at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, looks at long term follow up data for stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) used to treat more than 2,100 men with prostate cancer that had a low or intermediate risk of recurring.

The results were published Feb. 8 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

At MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, the therapy is delivered by a system called CyberKnife, which delivers high doses of radiation precisely aimed to minimize the involvement of healthy surrounding tissue.

Radiation oncologist Sean P. Collins, MD, PhD, says curative treatment is a shared goal along with maintaining a person’s quality of life.  Side effects, including impotence, can occur with all treatments for prostate cancer and can happen years after treatment.

“While it is necessary to observe these men for decades, our interim seven-year data show that survival and side effects are comparable to other forms of radiotherapy,” says Collins, director of the CyberKnife Prostate Program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and an associate professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University. 

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which establishes cancer treatment guidelines, classified SBRT as an alternative to conventional therapy, but had noted a lack of long term follow up data. There is much more experience with conventionally fractionated radiation therapy, delivered five times a week for up to nine weeks, and brachytherapy, in which radioactive seeds are implanted in the prostate.

“Our findings give us great confidence that CyberKnife should become a standard option for some men who want to avoid the hassle and inconvenience of standard therapy,” Collins says.

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Collins reports receiving grants from and being a paid consultant for Accuray Inc., the maker of CyberKnife.

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