CyberKnife for Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death in United States, right after lung cancer. While it affects a lot of people, mostly adult over fifty, there are many form of treatment for prostate cancer. One of which is through radiation therapy which have been used for decades by using ionizing radiation sources to kill malignant cell. More progressive form of prostate cancer is requiring higher dose of radiation for intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer patients. Unfortunately, increasing the dose also increases the risk of radiation poisoning.

Thus, the cyberknife is ideal to be use as a cure for cancer. It is quick, accurate, no side effect, and maneuverable for inoperable target. Each therapy take about 90 minutes, involving no operation and painless. Generally, a total dose of 38 Grey in 5 fractions is given to patient for their prostate cancer. In a tested trial data, it has shown that in the phase two of cyberknifing, there is shrinkage in the prostate tumor by at least 5 mm. Radiation poisoning is relatively low compare to other radiation therapy.

There is two cyberknife methods, heterogeneous and homogeneous planning. Homogeneous planning involve small amount of dosages gradient through the target volume which take 45-50 minutes. Heterogeneous planning uses more beam at higher dosages which take longer, 90 minutes.

I found this article interesting because it is related to my major, Radiological Health engineering. At the same time, this article talks about the physiological aspect. It is dealing with an alternative cure to cancers, radiation therapy, to a rising problem, prostate cancer. Statistical data show us that prostate cancer claims about 28,600 lives each year. Cyberknife might be the next step to curing prostate cancer.


Sources:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/200023.php
http://www.tcrt.org///mc_images/category/4309/04-katz_tcrt_9_5.pdf