Researchers have concluded that high dose radiation therapy as a primary therapy does not improve survival. However, it does reduce PSA failures and the need to use salvage therapy.
In this study, it was shown that higher-dose radiation therapy (RT) when used to treat localized prostate cancer (prostate cancer confined just to the prostate gland did not improve a man’s overall survival despite reducing the frequency of biochemical failure and the development of distant metastasis.
They found that the overall survival (OS) was virtually the same between the men who received a total radiation dose of 79.2 Gy and those who received a total dose of 70.2 Gy. They also found that the frequency of developing distant metastasis declined slightly for the men who received the higher doses. (4% versus 6%), and dose-escalated RT resulted in a 15% absolute improvement in the rate of biochemical failure at both 5 and 8 years.
They also found that dose-escalated radiation therapy substantially reduced the need for and use of any salvage therapies. The reduction of salvage therapy was a direct result of the decline in the biochemical recurrence rates.
https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/higher-dose-radiation-fails-improve-survival-prostate-cancer/
Joel T. Nowak, MA, MSW wrote this Post. Joel is the CEO/Executive Director of Cancer ABCs. He is a Cancer Thriver diagnosed with five primary cancers - Thyroid, Metastatic Prostate, Renal, Melanoma, and the rare cancer Appendiceal cancer.
