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Men, don’t skip your Prostate Cancer
treatment appointments!
Newswise — Men with “low risk” prostate
cancer who miss more than two radiation
treatments in an eight week treatment face
an increased chance of their cancer
recurring. That is the conclusion of a new
study examining more than 15 years of data
and nearly 1,800 patients treated at Fox
Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
The results were presented today at the
American Society for Therapeutic Radiology
and Oncology’s 49th Annual Meeting in Los
Angeles.
As radiation doses are escalated, overall
treatment time has expanded for prostate
cancer. A typical course of external beam
therapy such as IMRT is about five days a
week for eight weeks.
“Eight weeks of treatment is a significant
time commitment. As the treatment times
continue to increase, the potential for
missed treatments increases,” said David J.
D'Ambrosio, M.D., a resident in the
Department of Radiation Oncology at Fox
Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
For the study, D’Ambrosio and his colleagues
examined the records of 1,796 men treated
with external beam radiation between 1989
and 2004. A majority of patients (1,362)
received 3D conformal radiation therapy
while about a quarter (434) received IMRT,
intensity modulated radiation therapy. The
men were divided into three groups: low
risk, intermediate risk and high risk.
“Our findings show that when men with low
risk prostate cancer miss more than two r
treatment days over eight weeks, their risk
of the cancer recurring increases,”
D’Ambrosio said. “This highlights the
importance of finishing treatment without
breaks, once it has begun.”
Researchers used a ratio for non-treatment
days to examine the rate of biochemical
failure (recurrence of the cancer based on a
rising PSA level). The 10 year rate of
biochemical failure in the low risk group
was 18 percent when patients had a low
non-treatment day ratio versus 43 percent
when the patient had a higher non-treatment
day ratio (p=0.0019). The significance
remained even when the data were analyzed
using the absolute number of non-treatment
days instead of our non-treatment days
ratio, D’Ambrosio said.
“Of the three risk groups, we found a
greater pronouncement of biochemical failure
among the group at lowest risk. We believe
that in the low risk group, controlling
cancer in the prostate and keeping it from
spreading outside of the prostate makes the
greatest difference for these patients. In
this study, for men with high and
intermediate risk cancers, two days of
missed treatment did not seem to have as
great an impact. Despite this, treatment
breaks are still to be discouraged.”
Fox Chase Cancer Center was founded in 1904
in Philadelphia as the nation's first cancer
hospital. In 1974, Fox Chase became one of
the first institutions designated as a
National Cancer Institute Comprehensive
Cancer Center. Fox Chase conducts basic,
clinical, population and translational
research; programs of prevention, detection
and treatment of cancer; and community
outreach. For more information about Fox
Chase activities, visit the Center’s web
site at www.fccc.edu or call 1-888-FOX
CHASE.
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