Dr. Alvaro Martinez developed the treatment at Beaumont Hospital.
“I wrote this protocol 15 years ago. It’s taken me 15 years to have the first patient treated, so that’s very emotional for me,” said Martinez.
Brian Stark of Beverly Hills, Mich., was that first patient.
Stark said he has had his PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tested every six months for the past six or seven years. When it came back elevated last September, he had a biopsy and was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“I don’t know if it was denial or just, you know, it is what it is. My children were more upset about it than I was I think,” said Stark.
He met with doctors including Martinez and considered his treatment options, ultimately deciding to become the first person in the world to undergo a new single-dose radiation treatment called high-dose rate brachytherapy.
“Once you have cancer, it’s like ‘Get rid of it!’” said Stark.
High-dose rate brachytherapy involves temporarily implanting radioactive seeds about the size of a grain of rice at the prostate tumor site. With the patient receiving spinal anesthesia, doctors carefully place plastic needles in the prostate using ultrasound to guide them. A computer moves the seeds into the prostate through the needles at precisely timed intervals. The seeds are then removed from the prostate, so no radioactive material is left in the patient’s body and there is no risk of radiation exposure to family members.
“It takes two to three hours, then the patient goes home. The real treatment time, exposure to radiation is 7 to 15 minutes,” said Martinez.
The short treatment time seems to reduce the risk of side effects involving the bladder and rectum.
“Because we are delivering the treatment so fast, the dose to those organs is relatively small and they don’t seem to have as much side effects as the other patients,” said Martinez.
Martinez said performing a single treatment also reduces the risk of infection.
The new treatment is limited to low and intermediate risk patients with T1c through T2b tumors, a Gleason score of 6 or 7 and a PSA score lower than 15.
“Those are patients that have a slow-growing tumor with a relatively low to intermediate PSA level, and they are not having symptoms related to the cancer,” said Martinez.
Stark said he doesn’t feel like a pioneer, but Martinez keeps reminding him that he is.
Stark said his advice for other men is to get regular PSA checks.
“If they are diagnosed early, the cure rates are extremely high,” said Martinez.
“It makes one think about what’s really important. Your health obviously, friendships and relationships. Everything else is second or third place,” said Stark.
Beaumont has approval to perform the single-dose treatment in 60 patients, then they’ll stop and make sure those patients do as well as men who receive longer treatments.
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