What side effects have you experienced from SBRT for prostate cancer?

@jd18
There has been a good amount of discussion about brachytherapy. You could go to the top level of the prostate cancer, forum, and search for it to get people’s comments. It works quite well as a secondary treatment after IMRT. In Europe is used heavily for the main treatment.

It is suspected that the reason it is not using much here is because financially it is not as lucrative as doing many IMRT sessions or 5 SBRT sessions. There are still a number of doctors that do it in the US.

You definitely have more Side effects and more lasting side effects than The majority of people that get SBRT. My brother had it at 77 and he had urinary issues for a while, but Flomax resolved them. Starting about a year after his treatment, all of his issues went away.

This was posted by somebody else a few days ago. Goes into the most common radiation side effects.

@jd18
I just finished SBRT (Varian Ethos adaptive CT) a little over a week ago. The SEs came slowly, frequent urination, diarrhea, some body aches from a slight fever that occasionally rose to 100, and tiredness. I also lost my appetite. I'm late into my second month of Orgovyx. Today the SEs seem to be abating a little and I'm hoping that except for the ADT, the SEs will be done within a couple of weeks. All of this was manageable but unpleasant.

@jd18 That was mentioned early, but seems to have been dropped from the discussion. Sorry to hear about your situation. Hope things get better.

Update 6/19/2026: Just finished the SBRT on the 17th. Everything went well. Heard from the nurses and RTs that SBRT is the default treatment at my hospital and my doctor does them regularly. Still have no idea what all the to and froing was about. Started having GU SEs after my second treatment. Itchy/tingly feeling around the glans/meatus with feelings of urgency. Hesitancy, but able to totally void. Haven't made it through the night yet. As of today, 6/19, things are looking better. The itchy/tingling is mostly gone; I'm back to peeing every 2-3 hours. Still have irritation when urinating and getting up a couple if times per night. Don't know if this it on the SEs or if there is more to come in a couple of weeks. We'll see. The treatment itself was nothing burger. If what I've been dealing with for the last week is my SEs then they were very annoying, but also very tolerable. A little side note. I had of course an 18 core biopsy and the fiducial/spaceoar installation and honestly say they were also nothing burgers. I have friends who told me how horrible both would be and they just weren't. I've dental work done that was worse. Was awake through both. Either I have a high pain tolerance, or my urologist was a wizard.

Now the questions are, are there more SEs to come in a couple of weeks or is this it and did this all work. We'll hope for a no on the first and a yes on the second.

@bens1I think it's mostly a comfort thing for him. He always says I'll do the SBRT, but.... As for a definable reason he believes that the GU SEs of SBRT are much worse than IMRT. I read a lot of studies and don't see that.

I held firm. We did the SBRT.