Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men, and the five year survival rate is 97%.
"With improving technologies, and then guys living much longer with prostate cancer, we've really had to revolutionize how we approach men with prostate cancer, balancing disease control and quality of life, right?" said Dr. Christien Kluwe, radiation oncologist at Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio.
Kluwe is asking questions like, "does every prostate cancer patient need androgen deprivation therapy like testosterone blockers?"
"Can we identify those guys that will significantly benefit from a decrease in their testosterone and make sure that we treat them with ADT?" he said. "And the guys that aren't going to see a big benefit? Well, let's not put them through that."
He’s also studying radiation techniques like stereotactic body radiation therapy, which is so powerful and precise that it’s really changed the game for prostate cancer patients.
"So we're able to take that entire eight weeks of treatment and squeeze it down into five days with these really high doses, because we're able to see things precisely down to millimeter precision," Kluwe said. "And we're able to treat things precisely down to millimeter precision."
Tiny pellets the size of grains of rice deliver radiation directly to the cancer, sparing surrounding healthy tissue — in five days.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio that explores how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
