Though not as often discussed as breast cancer as it can often be detected considerably earlier and potentially save lives, the fact is that prostate cancer treatments have been somewhat on the decline in the past few years, particularly radiotherapy, so it's always good news to see new developments on the area.
Breast cancer is one of the biggest killers in the world, taking the lives of millions of women over the years, but for some reason there's less of a focus on prostate cancer treatments than some of women's issues in the more mainstream media; in any case, as time progresses, there's more and more research on different types of cancer hitting the mainstream media.
Earlier this month, Science Daily reported that, for prostate cancer treatment, radiotherapy was becoming less and less common in the United States, in spite of evidence of the benefits of its use, as only 10 percent of patients with the possibility of recurrence went under the treatment - a more than shocking scenario.
However, according to The Guardian, a new prostate cancer treatment has been proved to work recently by Canadian researchers: in the new healing method, patients of the potentially deadly illness get radioactive implants of small "seeds" that, ultimately, end up doubling the rate of survival after five years when compared to high-dose radiotherapy.
The Daily Mail reports that the new prostate cancer treatment is called brachytherapy, and the way it works is this: doctors plant these so-called radioactive "seeds" in the prostate gland, and these irradiate the tumor for about six months, minimizing exposure to healthy tissue.
Medical News Today reports that the study came from the Vancouver Cancer Centre at the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) in Canada, and it's the first time ever that these two techniques, external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy, are compared.
However, there are a few drawbacks in this new prostate cancer treatment, including a higher rate of severe late urinary side effects.
