← Return to 10 months after brachytherapy seeing a slight increase in PSA

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P.C.R.I. interviewed two of the brachytherapists who are with Western Radiation Oncology in a video entitled Brachytherapy for Prostate Cancer. They only do LDR, i.e. low dose rate brachytherapy that is done with permanently implanted "seeds". They claim to do more than 1000 cases per year, 8000 to date.

At around 1 hour 20 minutes into the podcast, in a section "How do I measure results" they discuss the PSA bounce phenomenon @brianjarvis mentioned in a comment here.

They say they observe it in 20 to 30 percent of their patients. The discussion mentions a case where a post treatment PSA of 0.5 goes to 1.2 then three months later comes back down. It appears they don't observe the PSA going right back down in every case, yet they claim the main thing is if the PSA stabilizes. A typical case is said to be a full point bounce. They say their experience shows that jumping in and doing a biopsy is not indicated as the tissue can be difficult for a pathologist to classify, as it resembles cancer, but it is typically not, at this stage. They say that "for us for up to two years a biopsy for those guys is worthless".

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Replies to "P.C.R.I. interviewed two of the brachytherapists who are with Western Radiation Oncology in a video entitled..."

@climateguy That makes a lot of sense since seed therapy kills slowly over time; less time than in the past, but slower compared to SBRT.
Various forms of brachy make a lot of sense to me; less peripheral damage, very precise targeting.
And salvage therapy could include cryoablation or ultrasound - again, no peripheral damage.
I guess it’s all about the $$ and the lower rates of reimbursement.
But it should be lower, since it takes a little over an hour to complete and doesn’t involve huge complicated accelerators and the buildings to house them.
Phil