Radiotherapy doses for prostate cancer could be cut by three-quarters, trial finds
GuardianOct 14, 2023
The Facts
According to a study by the UK's Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Cancer Research in London, higher doses of radiation therapy can reduce medium-risk prostate cancer patients' treatment doses by as much as 75%.
The Prostate Advances in Comparative Evidence study — whose findings will be presented on Monday to the American Society for Radiation Oncology in San Diego — compared results from 874 patients in the UK, Ireland, and Canada.
The Spin
Narrative A
This is a game-changer for people with intermediate-risk, localized prostate cancer. With the rapidly advancing field of radiotherapy, they can get effective radiation therapy that reduces the toxic treatment's duration and dosage, minimizes damage to surrounding healthy tissue, and increases the chance of keeping the disease at bay.
Narrative B
It's good to see that multibeam therapy can help prostate cancer patients get treated more quickly. However, as over 80% of prostate cancers are usually detected early, and the 5-year relative survival rate for most men with local or regional prostate cancer is nearly 100%, the revolutionary approach should have focused on curing high-risk, later-stage patients.