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Proton Treatment

User
Posted 04 Aug 2017 at 15:52

In the paper this morning was a piece about Proton Treatment and how a gentleman had not only to pay for a PSA reading but also had to go to the Czech Republic to receive this treatment, which is not available in the UK. If it is correct the treatment can attack the cancerous cells without side effects and damaging surrounding tissues. Two funded Proton machines are being built in UK, but will not be used to treat Prostate cancer. The obvious question: why not?

User
Posted 04 Aug 2017 at 21:17

Because the results haven't been very good. Proton treatment seems to work really well for some cancers that are hard to treat, such as cancer of the eye and some brain tumours and for treating some childhood cancers but it didn't do very well in trials as a primary treatment of prostate cancer. It does look to be a really encouraging salvage option though; we have a couple of members that have had it when their PCa came back. See manwithPC's profile - I think he went to Germany.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User
Posted 05 Aug 2017 at 01:45

The short answer to this is that Proton Beam has been shown to give better results than EBRT for some tumours, principally in the head and the UK have funded some of these patients to have treatment in the USA where they have the most experience of this form of treatment.  So priority is likely to be given to these patients at the Christie Manchester and UCLH London where the 2 new UK Proton Beam facilities are located  The effectiveness of Proton Beam for PCa over EBRT is less well established in practice despite being theoretically superior.

(Actually, EBRT (IMRT) with Carbon Ion Boost was my primary treatment I had in Germany and it was HIFU I had as salvage treatment at UCLH).

NB.  I changed my username several months ago to 'Old Barry' (as PC, as in 'Man With PC', is the abbreviation for Pancreatic Cancer  I found out but I see an unexplained reversion to my previous username - another forum glitch?

 

 

Edited by member 05 Aug 2017 at 02:58  | Reason: Not specified

Barry
 
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