HDR Brachytherapy treatment recovery process?

Posted by ngus44 @ngus44, Aug 3 11:33am

I am scheduled for two HDR brachytherapy treatments scheduled two weeks apart. What is the extent of the recovery/healing process?

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@ngus44

Two lesions, one left 3+3=6 , one right 3+4=7. 16 cores, 5 cores with carcinoma, no perineual invasion or lymphovascular invasion. PSA 7, Polaris score of 3.1, Decipher score of 0.50. Haven’t been on active surveillance, process with insurance (denials) has taken forever. But that’s another story. My first Brachytherapy is scheduled at end of month, then second two weeks later.

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Are you having Monotheraphy HDR ( Brachytherapy ) ?

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@5galloncan

Let me step in and explain why I considered HDR Brachytherapy as an alternative to surgery.

When I was diagnosed at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida with low risk Decipher, intermediate Gleason 7 cancer confined to the prostate, I was offered surgery, various photon therapies and HDR Brachytherapy. Moffitt's Proton therapy won't be available until 2026, so they never discussed it. If I had stuck with Moffitt, I would have chosen HDR Brachytherapy, trusting in their ability to deliver it accurately. The way I understood it, they would sew a temporary plate to my perineum with guide holes for the many delivery tubes that would be inserted into my prostate at predetermined locations. This would be done under a spinal block of some sort. Once tube placements were confirmed by imaging I would be taken to a treatment delivery room where a computerized machine would insert, retract, and repeat the process for all inserted tubes. The radiation seed would be precisely exposed for a predetermined time at the end of each tube and then retracted to be inserted into the next tube, etc. When finished, the plate and tubes would be removed and the whole process repeated one more time a couple weeks later. So with this therapy, you expose nothing outside the prostate to radiation, as you would with both photon therapy and to a lesser extent, proton therapy. If accurate (and you have to trust the science here), this treatment should leave you with fewer side effects than surgery, where you risk the dangers of anesthesia and surgery, snipping out the prostate and other tissues, including a section of your urethra that must then be stretched and reattached to the bladder neck, etc. So it only takes two days of treatment with HDR Brachy, two weeks apart. But I did some further research and went with proton therapy in Jacksonville, FL at UFHPTI instead. So far, so good.

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I just had my biopsy yesterday at TGH Brandon Healthplex. I feel very good today with no problems around the toilet. I expect to see the urologist in about two weeks for the results. All things being equal, I'm leaning toward proton therapy in Orlando. I think it is comparable to Jax though Jax is larger and older in terms of experience. Sort of the gold standard. I welcome any responses to this plan. It is a longer treatment than HDR Brachy. Does HDR Brachy involve a catheter? Thanks.

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I don't believe HDR Brachytherapy involved a catheter, but I never went through the procedure.

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