High-Dose Rate Brachytherapy
Delivering Radiation Directly to the Tumor
High-Dose Rate Brachytherapy (HDR) delivers radiation directly to the tumor, and is usually administered over only a few days with very little discomfort to the patient. Through our comprehensive prostate cancer treatment program, Goshen Center for Cancer Care is one of the few facilities in the country to offer High-Dose Rate Brachytherapy to help cure low- and high-risk, localized prostate cancer. This offers more options to more men to treat their prostate cancer and meet their specific needs.
High-Dose Rate Brachytherapy is the process of giving extremely high doses of internal radiation in a very short time. The radiation is delivered through a series of catheters that are placed into the prostate, and a radioactive seed is then passed through each catheter into the tumor site.
While HDR Brachytherapy has been a reliable treatment option for many years, physicians and researchers at Goshen Center for Cancer Care are constantly uncovering new applications for its use to treat prostate cancer. As a result, patients now experience significantly reduced treatment times and can return to their normal activities much quicker than older therapies had previously allowed. For example, in cases where a patient would have received traditional radiation therapy once a day for 39 days, HDR Brachytherapy allows three treatments in two days, which is then repeated a few weeks later.
HDR Brachytherapy can be used alone to treat low-risk, localized prostate cancer, or as a boost following TomoTherapy to treat high-risk, localized prostate cancer. And it can be an effective alternative to surgical prostate removal in the treatment of prostate cancer, offering survival rates similar to radical prostatectomy.
Benefits
• Greatly reduces risk of impotence, and virtually no risk of incontinence
• Offers greater control and accuracy of treatment, including dosing, source of radiation location and time it stays at each location
• Provides fewer side effects by placing radiation directly into the prostate and sparing healthy organs
• Requires minimal recovery time, as patients go home within hours after treatment with few restrictions
• Preserves internal tissues, as no radioactive seeds migrate into other organs
• Able to shape radiation dose to fit tumor
• Reduces treatment time, measured in days to weeks rather than a month
How It Works
Called the “smart bomb” of prostate cancer therapies, a series of tiny catheters is placed in the prostate gland, under a general anesthesia in the operating room. A single radioactive pellet is directed through each of these catheters into precisely targeted locations inside the tumor. After a very short time, the pellet is removed. The goal is to destroy the cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue.
Initially, a CT scan and ultrasound are used to identify the structure of the prostate tumor. During the HDR procedure, a computer is used to precisely control how long the radioactive seed remains at several positions in each tube, determining the radiation dose to specific parts of the prostate gland. The total treatment time is about 15 minutes per session, twice daily over two days. This process is repeated again a few weeks later.