SBRT or Prostatectomy? Mission Impossible

I think the days when health care professionals can avoid questions they don't want to answer and just brush people off with a "radiation is radiation" response are over.

Information is too readily available and you can easily reference studies showing differences in efficacy and side effects with different radiation procedures. Tall Allen often links to these.

There may be reasons why your condition dictates for or against a particular procedure (I know someone who would prefer SBRT, but they are not a good candidate for it) but for a doctor to just imply all procedures are equally good is just wrong.

John_TX said...
I wouldn't limit your radiation choices to just SBRT. My urologist at MD Anderson said "radiation is radiation" when I asked about the different varieties. My salvage radiation was IMRT at MD Anderson. If I was going to go the radiation route as first treatment, it would have been brachytherapy (seeds.)

Thanks everyone...a flood of useful information. So glad that mostly good news
Good time to all.

Hi IgnoreIT,

I'm not sure what part of FL you are in. However, my brother lives in Boca Raton and found it worth the trip up to Tampa to the Moffitt center for his rectal cancer treatment. Some of the treatment (chemo) was done locally in Boca but he did travel up to Tampa fairly often. His cancer had metastasized to his lungs and his liver. Long story short, he is doing great and has been cancer free for about 4 years now.

He actually went to MD Anderson in Houston when he first discovered the cancer. They told him there was nothing they could do there that they could not do at Moffitt.

I see that they offer IMRT and SBRT there. This is all anecdotal but I hope it servers to help rather than confuse.

Good luck,
Tim

Thanks Garyl. Will call him first thing Monday morning.