Prostate Cancer Treatment Radiation Pellets
Brachytherapy or internal radiation therapy are also terms used to describe this procedure.
Prostate cancer treatment radiation pellets. To plan an implant doctors analyze ultrasound images of the patient s prostate and determine how many pellets will be needed and where each pellet should be placed. A newer type of radiation involving the implantation of radioactive pellets or seeds into the prostate gland has also become popular over the past few years. The best treatment for prostate cancer that is confined to the gland itself is radical surgery or radiation therapy. It involves implanting radioactive pellets in your prostate.
Radioactive seeds or pellets are surgically placed into or near the cancer to destroy the cancer cells. Brachytherapy works from the inside out. Radioactive seed implants are a form of radiation therapy for prostate cancer. The pellets release radiation over a period of days or weeks.
A machine outside the body directs radiation at the cancer cells. In a brachytherapy procedure small radioactive pellets are inserted into the prostate delivering a concentrated radiation dose to the cancerous area. It delivers radiation from small radioactive seeds or pellets each the size of a grain of rice that. Radiation therapy can be delivered external to the body but the high energy radiation waves also may cause injury to the surrounding tissue such as the bladder and the rectum.
Internal radiation therapy irt or brachytherapy involves placing radioactive pellets inside the body on the prostate gland. The seeds may give off high or low amounts of radiation. Prostate brachytherapy brachytherapy is a procedure to implant radioactive seeds pellets into the prostate gland to kill prostate cancer cells. This was the treatment recently.
Other therapies used in the treatment of prostate cancer that are still under investigation include. In the last few years a new treatment option has been added which makes use of tiny radioactive pellets about the size of a staple which is directly place into the prostate using hollow needles. It s a good option for early stage or low grade prostate cancer. 28 2000 chicago tens of thousands of men with prostate cancer are coming home with radioactive pellets permanently implanted in the small gland in their groin but new research says.
Internal radiation therapy brachytherapy.