Hi Bill,
Sorry you join us due to your PCa and also for the loss of your brother to this rotten disease.
There are pros and cons to all treatments and how you respond depends mainly on how appropriate these are for your individual situation and of course how well these are administered.
Theoretically, side effects of Proton Beam should be less than for Photon radiation as for some other cancers. However, what little published reports there are show no really significant advantage for treating PCa. see thread https://community.prostatecanceruk.org/posts/t21539-Proton-Beam
I assume you have fully considered your options with an independent consultant and not just somebody promoting Proton Beam?
I had a combination of EBRT + Carbon Ion boost (the latter is like Proton Beam but more powerful also being a Hadron Therapy). I had side effects from the HT but apart from increased urgency and frequency to urinate during and for a couple of months after RT was little affected. Were I diagnosed the same today, I would opt for Brachytherapy plus EBRT from choice.
Edited by member 27 Jul 2019 at 03:39
| Reason: To highlight link
Barry |
User
It seems unwise to me to spend £27500 on a treatment which has no demonstrable benefit over EBRT which can be had free of charge on the NHS.
Best wishes,
Chris
User
I have had the op to implant. The balloon
and starting the proton B next Tuesday
i will
keep you informed of progress in the treatment
i have investigated as much as possible
but there is little info as there is no data available as there are no trails been carried out
User
Hi all
Avoid proton treatment in Prague. I had an extremely bad experience
User
I believe you may have mentioned this before. We have got the message!
There may be a reason why proton beam therapy is not available on the NHS for PCa, not withstanding that there are, at the last count, only a couple of centres in Britain that have proton beam equipment anyway.
Regardless of the unfortunate side-effects, did the proton radiation rid you of cancer?
Cheers, John.
Edited by member 28 Sep 2021 at 07:23
| Reason: Not specified
User
Hi John
Obviously far too early to say given that the treatment was less than a year ago. I had not previously posted on this thread.
Edited by member 28 Sep 2021 at 07:38
| Reason: Not specified
User
A good friend of mine had PB treatment here at the Rutherford Centres who are pioneering the treatment in the UK. I think he was one of their first patients to have the treatment on multifocal PCa. So far his outcome has been very good and the treatment went smoothly but it wasn’t cheap and only partially covered by insurance. Plus one must be mindful that PCa tends to be a multifocal disease so at best focal treatments may be just kicking the can down the road.
Edited by member 28 Sep 2021 at 07:38
| Reason: Not specified