Prostate Brachytherapy in Clinical Practice

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the USA and the UK and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in both countries after lung cancer.Now more frequently diagnosed at an earlier stage, prostate cancer may be cured by radical therapies. The development of prostate brachytherapy, using tiny radioactive seeds implanted into the prostate gland, offers a curative day case treatment for patients with a much improved side effect profile. Long-term studies have shown this treatment to be as effective as radical surgery. As a result, brachytherapy has become the most popular form of treatment for prostate cancer in the USA and its use in the UK is rapidly increasing. With greater access of patients to the latest medical treatments, this book is essential for urologists, oncologists, radiation physicists, specialist nurses, and family medicine practitioners to become conversant with this developing technique.

Mr Stephen Langley MS FRCS(Urol), Consultant Urological Surgeon and Honorary Senior Lecturer, qualified in medicine from St Bartholomew's Medical School, London in 1988 and was appointed as a consultant urological surgeon at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, UK in 1998. During his training he undertook a sabbatical at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore and USC, California, learning the art of radical prostatectomy and cystectomy. Having being appointed a consultant he visited Seattle learning the techniques of prostate brachytherapy and he was one of the pioneers in the UK in developing a brachytherapy programme. Having treated some 500 patients with prostate brachytherapy to date, he has first hand experience of treating patients with early prostate cancer by both radical prostatectomy and brachytherapy. Working with the University of Surrey he has established a successful research unit investigating areas in both the clinical and molecular aspects of prostate cancer. This work has won a number of awards, and has been presented and published widely

1. Historical developments of brachytherapy 2. Patient selection 3. The equipment (including radioactive seeds, planning computers, ultrasound images) 4. Treatment planning (including physics) 5. Techniques of implantation 6. Post-operative evaluation (including CT scan) 7. Complications 8. Clinical results 9. Combination treatments (including hormones, external beam) 10. Comparison data with radical surgery and conventional radiotherapy