Have any comparative effectiveness studies been conducted that compared surgery, brachytherapy, and external beam radiation?
For low-risk prostate cancer patients, there’s has never been a randomized trial that looks at surgery vs. brachytherapy vs. external beam. There never will be a study comparing all three of these treatments head to head because you can’t randomize patients, and there is so much patient bias and so much physician bias. So we look at the studies that focus on surgery, that focus on external beam, that focus on brachytherapy and long-term local control [absence of progression] and biochemical-free survival [a patient’s PSA level does not rise]. Control is usually excellent for someone who is low risk. It’s great for surgery, external beam, or brachytherapy. As a whole, there’s been an over 85 percent cure rate and in some sub-group of patients it actually higher than that. What are some other novel technology and/or imaging-based approaches to radiation therapy treatment that are currently in development? In the future, I think there’s going to be more and better daily guided-imaging rad
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- Have any comparative effectiveness studies been conducted that compared surgery, brachytherapy, and external beam radiation?
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