MRI-guided radiotherapy for prostate cancer treatment
The goal of Magnetic Resonance (MR)-guided radiotherapy is to improve tumor control and reduce toxicity and costs for patients with prostate cancer.
On an annual basis 3000 men in the Netherlands will receive prostate cancer radiotherapy. With the ageing population these numbers will further increase in the future. Although tumor control is generally favourable, more precise radiation treatment with MR-guidance may further improve prostate cancer outcomes for these men. Almost all men will experience urinary and bowel problems after radiation therapy, these side effects impact their quality of life.
With MR-guided radiotherapy for prostate cancer it is now possible to treat more precise and less surrounding healthy tissue is exposed to radiation. It is expected that this will lead to less side effects and a better quality of life. With very precise MRI-guided radiotherapy it is also possible to deliver a higher dose of radiation for each treatment. This means that certain patients with prostate cancer can now be treated in 2 radiation sessions instead of the standard 20 sessions. This development will help improve patient comfort as there is less travel time and early cost-effectiveness studies have show that this will also save healthcare costs. Over the course of the next 10 years patients undergoing MR-guided radiotherapy will be studied and side effects and cancer control will be compared to the other standard treatments such as surgery and CT-guided radiation treatment techniques. Also technical developments for even more precise radiation therapy will be further explored in this project.
The first results are promising, it is now possible to perform MR-guided radiotherapy in 2 fractions with limited toxicity for patients with intermediate risk prostate cancer. Allready MR-guided radiotherapy is having an impacton a global level with regards to prostate cancer treatment.
