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| |  Significantly High Prostate Cancer Cure Rate With Brachytherapy TAMPA, FL -- March 30, 2000 -- In a presentation to the American Cancer Society's 42nd Science Writers Seminar Wednesday, Dr. Haakon Ragde of Northwest Hospital, Seattle, announced an observed 79 percent cure rate at 12 years for high-risk prostate cancer patients who received a combination of external beam radiation and prostate brachytherapy. In a study of 215 consecutive brachytherapy patients directly observed for up to 12 years, Dr. Ragde and researchers at Northwest Prostate Institute found an overall cure rate of 70 percent. "Our overall cure rate is significant because it matches the cure rate for radical prostatectomy at 10 years reported by Johns Hopkins Hospital," comments Dr. Ragde. "Our 79 percent cure rate for high-risk patients is by far the best ever reported for such patients." The Northwest Prostate Institute reports on 215 consecutive brachytherapy patients directly observed for up to 12 years. Eighty-two of the Seattle patients were characterized as being high risk. That subset had stage T2b or higher prostate cancer, Gleason scores of 7 or higher, and PSA levels equal to or above 10 ng/Ml. "The confined high-dose radiation achievable with brachytherapy has yielded long-term curative results as good as the best results reported from patients treated with radical prostatectomy and better than results obtained with external radiation," Dr. Ragde writes in his report. "Conformal prostate brachytherapy is poised to assume a major role in modern medicine, and may well serve as a model for cancer treatments at other body sites." In 1985 at Northwest Hospital, Dr. Ragde pioneered the use of ultrasound-guided radioactive seed implants for prostate cancer in the United States. He has successfully performed thousands of brachytherapy procedures. In seed implant therapy, a urologist and a radiation oncologist insert tiny radioactive seeds into the prostate itself. The seeds irradiate and destroy the tumor from the inside without damaging adjacent healthy tissue. Incontinence and impotence can be significant complications for radical prostatectomy. These complications are much less prevalent among brachytherapy patients. Physicians believe that prostate brachytherapy is an excellent treatment option because it is much less invasive than surgical removal of the prostate. Rather than an extensive hospital stay, the outpatient procedure is usually performed in less than one hour and patients return to normal activities in one to three days. According to the American Cancer Society, 180,400 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000 and 31,900 will die from the disease. Prostate cancer usually shows no symptoms in early stages, when it is most treatable. To detect the disease early, the American Cancer Society recommends that, starting at age 50, every man should have an annual exam which includes a digital rectal exam and a screening blood test. Northwest Hospital is a not-for-profit hospital in Seattle. The Northwest Prostate Institute is affiliated with the hospital.
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