"As patient volumes rise, substantially reducing the number of times a patient needs to visit a cancer treatment center frees up valuable resources, allowing our radiation oncology teams to treat more patients in less time," said Prof. van As.are diagnosed before the cancer has grown beyond the prostate gland. The primary treatment options for localized prostate cancer include active surveillance, radiation therapy or surgery to remove the prostate gland.
"There's a lot of evidence now that prostate cancer actually responds better to a large fraction size given over a shorter period of time," he said."We've demonstrated now that the accelerated course is as effective as the protracted course." Patients were randomly assigned to receive either SBRT consisting of five fractions over one to two weeks , or standard radiation consisting of 39 fractions over 7.5 weeks or 20 fractions over four weeks . None of the patients received hormonal therapy. Median follow-up was 73.1 months.
"Standard radiation treatment is already highly effective and is very well tolerated in people with localized prostate cancer," Prof. van As said."But for a health care system and for patients, to have this treatment delivered just as effectively in five days as opposed to four weeks has huge implications."