Full list of topics 
Spacer
Spacer
Spacer
Spacer
Spacer

Prostate CancerArrow
Male 48 - 60
Interview 42  

Interview 42

Age at Interview: 51
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 50
Background:

Brief outline:Diagnosed with prostate cancer 2000, short hormone treatment, brachytherapy and conformal beam radiation 2000.


To watch or read an interview clip, click on the heading that interests you. Either a video,audio recording or text will open, depending on the clip
To close transcript boxes, click here
To print the interview’s text, click here
Describes his Brachytherapy treatment supplemented by conformal beam radiation in the USA.

 



I should explain that the way that the Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia work is that they use Brachytherapy supplemented by conformal beam radiation so there's Brachytherapy which is the insertion of permanent radioactive seeds into the prostate followed by a period of 6 or 7 weeks external conformal beam radiation.

And how are the seeds actually put into the prostate?

The way the seeds are put into the prostate is that the urologist, through the back passage inserts needles into the prostate and then the oncologist pushes the seeds along the needles and then the needles are withdrawn and the seeds are left inside the prostate. It's a very difficult job to do well because its very important to space the seeds correctly because if they're bunched together and not evenly distributed then you can get what they call cold spots, in other words areas in the prostate that are not sufficient irradiated. Anyway the placing of the seeds is absolutely key and they have to be put in very precisely. And it's up to about 100 seeds that they put in.

Did you start to have any side effects from the conformal radiation?

I had some tiredness may be about half way through and that happened to something like 20% of the patients but it was very mild and I didn't really have any, I did have some, may be some problems with bowel movements to some extent but that was the only area that I had any problems with and it was nothing serious.

And how long do these seeds go on giving out radiation?

So they have a half life of 60 days, that means that every 60 days they lose half of their strength so I guess you could say after a year that they've pretty much petered out.

So what happened after that?

So after that I was required to go back, I was required to have a PSA test after 3 months and then after another 3 months and thereafter every 6 months. The PSA test that I had immediately before the biopsy was 4.4 and I've had since then 2 PSA tests. The first one I had in November and the PSA had gone down to 1.0 and I've just had another PSA test and it's gone down to 0.26 (laughs). 
Karol Sikora - Prostate cancer
Support our work

healthtalkonline.org - Teaching and Learning

Mail to a friend

Send