St. James offers new treatment for prostate cancer
December 26th, 2008 Posted in prostate cancerA new scan could help tell the difference between aggressive prostate cancers and harmless slow-growing ones.
A new procedure to combat prostate cancer is being performed at St. James Healthcare in Butte.
Since 1992, Dr. John Stevenson has been performing brachytherapy, an outpatient procedure that involves inserting 80 to 100 radiation “seeds” into the prostate.
It’s a relatively simple, 45-minute outpatient procedure that uses a plastic, credit-card sized grid to place the seeds exactly where Stevenson wants them.
The seeds, which vary in radiation power in relation to the cancer’s stage, are stranded together by a substance similar to shrink-wrap so they stay in place.
Eventually, the seeds dissolve and the success rate using brachytherapy on early stage prostate cancer is 90 to 95 percent.
Initial tests on 80 men suggest the scan is highly accurate in distinguishing between the two.