Conformal radiotherapy of prostate carcinoma: Procedure description

Abstract

Introduction. Today, three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy is a standard way in the radical treatment of localized prostate cancer, and it is an alternative to the radical prostatectomy. This method of radiotherapy treatment is widely accepted in the treatment of prostate cancer patients, and provides irradiation of targeted volume (prostate, seminal vesicles) with dose escalation sparing the surrounding healthy tissues (rectum, bladder) at the same time. That is not possible with the conventional twodimension technique. Procedure description. Three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy is a volumetric, visual simulation according to the computed tomography slices; it defines the tumour and organ at risk individually in each patient. Results of several studies have shown that there is a significant decrease in the development of acute toxicity when prostate cancer patients are treated with conformal radiotherapy. High dose irradiation gives excellent results in treatment of localized prostate carcinoma and improves treatment results in the patients with locally advanced carcinoma of prostate. Discussion. Prostate carcinoma irradiation techniques have been changed dramatically during recent years. Data obtained by computed tomography are important since the size and shapes of the prostate as well as its anatomic relations towards the rectum and bladder are considerably different in individual patients. The three-dimension plan of irradiation can be designed for each patient individually by performing computed tomography technique when planning radiotherapy. Conclusion. The advanced planning systems for conformal radiotherapy can reconstruct the anatomic structures of pelvis in three-dimension technique on the basis of computed tomography scans, which provides better conformality between the irradiation beam and geometrical shape of the tumour with minimal irradiation of the surrounding healthy tissue.