Logistics of having Brachytherapy away from home hospital - Localised cancer

User

Posted 07 Sep 2017 at 20:06

Hi all,

recently diagnosed Gleason 7 (3+4) with only moderate prostate enlargement (50ml) and hence wondering if Brachytherapy is a viable alternative for me. Looks like it could be from on-line research.

Unfortunately my local hospital does not provide Brachytherapy, nor do any of the neighbouring ones. My nurse specialist has told me of the nearest hospital providing the procedure, which is two hours drive away, possibly more on a bad day.

So I would be concerned, not so much with travel to the procedure and the prior consultations, but with how often a quick drop-in to the hospital might be needed in the recovery period when you might not be keen on travel. Would perhaps the local hospital pick up ongoing care for a procedure they don't carry out themselves?

Is there any experience out there please?

User

Posted 07 Sep 2017 at 21:48

I think you need to clarify whether you are talking about high dose (temporary) brachytherapy or permanent seed brachytherapy? Also, with or without hormone treatment? High dose brachytherapy is often paired with external RT in which case you might have to attend the hospital every day for 4 or 7 weeks.

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

User

Posted 08 Sep 2017 at 01:32

If you intend to have your treatment within the NHS and Brachytherapy would need to be outside the area of your local clinical commissioning group, I suggest you check whether they will fund it. As Lyn says, further visits will be more numerous if the Brachytherapy is augmented with External Beam radiation. It might be possible to have the latter administered locally, should it be recommended but the split responsibility may not be acceptable for this or for follow ups, so the question has to be asked.

Brachytherapy is becoming increasingly popular and short to medium results compare favourably with External Beam only. Whether you consider the benefit of this justifies the additional cost and time travelling or staying closer to a treating hospital is something you must decide. I took the view (having taken expert advice), that it was worth getting what I considered was the best RT package at the time in a study in Germany. This involved an initial preparatory visit of one week, a stay of some seven weeks for two forms of RT and several subsequent check up visits over the following three years. The Royal Marsden agreed to monitor me thereafter. So a 2 hour journey does not seem too difficult but may depend on your circumstances.

Barry

User

Posted 08 Sep 2017 at 10:21

Thanks Lynn,

I should have clarified LDR Brachytherapy, but of course, I can't know prior to a consultation if Hormone treatment would be required as part of this.

regards

Martin

User

Posted 08 Sep 2017 at 18:34

Hello virtualreality,

If it's straightforward LDR Brachytherapy it may well be trouble free and you'll just have to attend the regular checkups. Our local hospital didn't do it either so for us it's train, tube and bus into London.

John gets regular PSA tests via our GP and takes the results to the hospital for appointments. If he wants assistance with anything linked to the treatment (ie ED) then again he approaches the GP and he prescribes what is necessary

We can't control the winds - but we can adjust our sails

User

Posted 26 Sep 2017 at 17:07

Hello. My other half had brachytherapy. The nearest hospital to offer it is 2 hours away. The nearest for radiotherapy is about an hour. So we decided the 4 hour round trip a few times was a lot easier that 2 hour round trip every day for the beam therapy. No problems with the journey. Almost 3 years on we can just phone the psa result through to the consultant every 6 months.

So all easy enough for us.

Notification

Logistics of having Brachytherapy away from home hospital - Brachytherapy

Join the online community now.