This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
IMRT may lead to less gastrointestinal morbidity than CRT, proton therapy
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Intensity-modulated radiation therapy as prostate cancer treatment may lead to fewer cases of gastrointestinal morbidity and hip fractures than conformal radiation or proton therapy, according to recent results.
Researchers designed the population-based study to compare the morbidity, disease control and other effects of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), proton therapy and conformal radiation therapy (CRT) for the treatment of prostate cancer. Researchers collected Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Medicare-linked data on patients with nonmetastatic prostate cancer from 2000 through 2009.
“Radiation treatment is commonly used to treat early prostate cancer, but there are different types of radiation,” researcher Ronald C. Chen, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, told Healio.com. “The number of … choices available to treat prostate cancer can often be confusing to patients, and research directly comparing the effectiveness and side effects of different treatments can provide important information to help patients and their physicians in the decision-making process.”
Researchers found that patients who underwent IMRT as opposed to CRT were less likely to be diagnosed with gastrointestinal morbidities (RR=0.91, 95% CI, 0.86-0.96) and hip fractures (RR=0.78, 95% CI, 0.65-0.93), and also were less likely to undergo additional cancer therapy (RR=0.81, 95% CI, 0.73-0.89). IMRT recipients were, however, more likely to experience erectile dysfunction (RR=1.12, 95% CI, 1.03-1.20).
IMRT patients also had a lower gastrointestinal morbidity rate than patients undergoing proton therapy (RR=0.66, 95% CI, 0.55-0.79). Differences in the rates of other issues such as incontinence, erectile dysfunction and hip fractures were not statistically significant between the two therapies.
“This population-based study suggests that IMRT may be associated with improved disease control without compromising morbidity compared with conformal radiation therapy,” the researchers wrote, “although proton therapy does not appear to provide additional benefit.”
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts