Proton Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Proton therapy is a form of radiation therapy that has been utilized mostly for non-prostate cancer for several decades. It is new to Florida, and some of our patients have been interested in comparing this form of radiation therapy to the more standard radiation therapies.

In brief, the published literature suggests that patients treated with proton radiation therapy suffer higher cancer failure rates, might have a higher risk of developing second radiation induced cancers later on, and do not have any improvement in their likelihood of preserving potency or avoiding long term complications from treatment.

X-ray (also known as photon) radiation and brachytherapy (seeds) have been evaluated thoroughly in multiple well designed clinical trials with well known and accepted results published in peer reviewed medical journals. Unfortunately, there is very little clinical data available on proton therapy in scientific journals that allow other physicians to independently evaluate the validity of the results. The available studies on proton irradiation for prostate cancer are primarily from a single institution in California, with a limited number of patients and follow-up times that are inferior to that available for standard therapies.

Proton Therapy for Prostate FAQs