Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers

Brachytherapy – Internal radiation uses small radioactive pellets placed directly into the prostate. These pellets may be permanent or temporary. Because they are so small, they cause little discomfort and are often left in place after their radioactive material is used up. Sometimes these pellets are referred to as seeds. Brachytherapy can cause impotence, urinary incontinence and bowel problems. For about a week after the pellets are put in place, there may be some pain in the area and a red-brown color to the urine.

External Beam Radiation – External beam radiation therapy treats the prostate and other selected tissues with a carefully targeted beam of radiation administered from machines outside the body. Treatments are on an outpatient basis and can last up to eight weeks. Side effects can include diarrhea with or without blood in the stool, rectal leakage and irritated intestines.

Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) – IMRT is the use of a computer system to optimize the radiation delivery. This system evaluates millions of possible beam arrangements and creates a clinically optimized treatment plan. This plan maximizes the radiation dose delivered to the tumor while minimizing the radiation dose delivered to the surrounding normal tissues. The ability to maximize the dose to the tumor while sparing the normal tissues allows radiation oncologists to deliver more cancer-killing radiation to the tumor while reducing potential adverse side effects of radiation treatment.

A study by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York showed that after receiving high-resolution IMRT, 94 percent of the prostate patients tested had no signs of cancer. Survival rates have significantly improved in a number of other cancers as well.

SonArray Localization – The SonArray system provides a high-accuracy method for positioning and repositioning the patient during the course of radiation therapy. For each treatment session, the prostate is localized using the ultrasound, which has a set of infrared-sensitive markers that track the probe’s position. By tracking the position of the probe and matching it to pretreatment CT images of the patient, the patient’s position can be determined and corrected for inaccuracies that may result from internal organ movement. In this way, the radiation is more precisely delivered to the prostate and minimizes radiation exposure to normal healthy tissue.

Surgery – Surgical removal of the entire prostate gland is called radical prostatectomy. This surgery is usually performed to remove early-stage prostate cancer before it can spread to other parts of the body. In most cases, removing the prostate removes the cancerous tumor as well. If the cancer spreads outside of the prostate, it cannot be cured with surgery. Patients who undergo radical prostatectomy should expect at least a two- to four-day stay in the hospital. Full recovery can sometimes take up to 12 weeks.