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Any advice or shared experiences with SpaceOAR Hydrogel?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Mar 4 10:47am | Replies (25)Comment receiving replies
SpaceOAR after prostatectomy is very rarely done, but it apparently can be done to reduce radiation dose to the rectum. I think it’s because most believe SpaceOAR’s only use is to distance the rectum from the prostate being radiated, when it’s actual purpose is to distance the rectum from whatever is being radiated.
As these papers point out, SpaceOAR can be used in the salvage radiation setting to distance the rectum from the local cancer recurrence where the prostate was.
Here are papers from 2015 about this:
> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25339311/
Here is a paper from 2019 about this: https://medcraveonline.com/IJRRT/IJRRT-06-00224.pdf
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Brian, Very interesting…in the most recent 2019 article it does stress that there must be “clear macroscopic evidence” of disease in order to know where to place the barrier (between IT and the rectum). My PET was clear.
Also, you can’t unwittingly displace unseen cancer cells posteriorly toward the rectum with the gel- thereby blocking the radiation attempting to hit it.
My RO went over this with me - not in the same detail, however - when I asked about it; and the last thing I wanted was rogue cells being protected by s barrier and getting away from the path of the beam.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still very concerned about possible future toxicities, but I was very strict in my adherence to dietary guidelines and they were checking for gas before every session so I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best.