Success rates at our Centre

At The Prostate Brachytherapy Centre we have a detailed record on the outcomes of treatment in all our patients. This means that we can tell new patients about the long-term success of this treatment when carried out by our team. This commitment to the long-term follow up of all our patients has also provided the data for many of our published papers in numerous international medical journals.

Some of the patients we have treated had early prostate cancer (stage T1 or stage T2) whilst others we treated had more progressive or advanced disease. Some of the patients have received additional hormone therapy, some had additional external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and some had both additional hormone therapy and additional EBRT.

We tend to divide patients into low, intermediate, and high risk groups when reporting the clinical outcomes of treatment. Patients with low risk prostate cancer have a PSA level below 10 ng/mL, stage 1 or 2 tumours and Gleason score of 3+3=6 or lower. Patients with intermediate risk prostate cancer have either a PSA level over 10 ng/mL, stage 3 tumours or Gleason score higher than 6. Patients with high risk prostate cancer have two or more of these factors.

Success rates at our Centre

We have recently presented the outcomes from the first 500 patients we have treated and followed for nearly 10 years at the annual meeting of British Association of Urological Surgeons. Overall, 99.6% of our patients are either alive or, if they have died, have not died from prostate cancer.

At 7 years post-treatment 91% of patients appeared to have successful treatment from prostate cancer with no sign of disease present. The cancer-free rates for patients according to their prostate cancer risk group are shown in the table below. We use patients PSA levels to determine whether there is any evidence that they have prostate cancer present, as it is the most sensitive way of assessing patients and it can detect cancer long before it is ever visible on MRI or bone scans.

Success rates at our Centre

The side effect profile is also of great importance when considering treatment options.  At The Prostate Brachytherapy Centre less than 1% of our patients experience urinary incontinence at any time and now over 83% of patients can expect to retain their potency, as reported in our recent paper published in a peer reviewed European journal (Radiotherapy and Oncology 2008;88:P121-126). Indeed two of our patients have even fathered children 4 years after their implant.