Prostate Cancer Blog – Proton Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Very disappointing Medical Essay, June 2005 from the prestigious, Mayo Clinic, Subject: Prostate health.

On page 7, the last sentence of the paragraph on Radiation Therapy that starts with the statement “This is an effective alternate to surgery”, says:

“However, a newer form of therapy uses protons instead of X-rays to kill the cancer. Protons travel through non cancerous tissue and deposit their radiation dose in the targeted area. This form of radiation is under study at a few medical centers, and it’s anticipated that the use of this technique will increase in coming years.” See excerpt attached.

This is very incomplete statement and the only acknowledgement of “protons” in this otherwise informative eight page essay.

Since I just saw Doctor Rossi, on May 17th, started in 1999 with a PSA of 15.9, Gleason 6 and Stage T1C, and now have nothing on the DRE and a PSA of <.1 with five years, 9 months since treatment with no side effects in the last two years, what gives? What is their "protocol" for treatment information? There are two reports Peer reviewed, from Loma Linda that I have read, and about 7,000 men treated for Prostate Cancer at LLUMC. It would seem that Mayo would get the word that a substantial "study" is already completed. Ruined my weekend.

PSA was less than 0.1. On the way home tomorrow.

By the way, M.D. Anderson is due on line next spring, 2006. The Midwest radiotherapy center in Bloomington, Indiana is already treating Prostates and other cancers and Loma Linda has the first 50 women on the way toward refining the breast cancer protocols.

I hear the Germans will be open with their Proton Facility in Munich, maybe as early as next month.

About a year ago I started the campaign PRotons with a “R” and I was pleased to see that they picked up on that idea in their web site.

IMRT Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, and 3D Three Dimensional Radiation has a protocol similar to Protons. However, these types of Radiation are X-Rays (Photons) with the usual side effects. See Table for comparison of effects.

Note the top three items – bad news for the patient. The source is Dr. Metz at U. PA, he is the Doctor responsible for the new Proton Center at University of Pennsylvania around 2007.