It has been unveiled by a group of oncologists at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson that brachytherapy can be extremely helpful in reducing the high mortality rates among prostate cancer patients, says a latest report.

The team of oncologists has found that contemporary brachytherapy, which is in accordance with the best quality standards, can prove to be a very efficient tool in treatment of prostate cancer. It says that brachytherapy is equivalent to external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) that reduces transience rates.

As per the report, it was proved by previous studies that brachytherapy technique is helpful in curing the cancer, but was questioned due to the poor quality of the technique. The researchers have now discovered that the high- quality brachytherapy technique either used alone or along with EBRT can be remarkably helpful for men with high-risk of prostate cancer. It is against the previous findings that said that the radiotherapy could only help patients who are at low or intermediate risks.

A research was carried out by the team that enrolled thousands of men with high-risk prostate cancer. Some of them were given brachytherapy, others were treated with brachyherapy combined with EBRT while a third group received EBRT alone. They used surveillance, epidemiology, and end results database to reach a conclusion. It was found by the team that those who received brachyherapy alone or with EBRT showed reductions in death rates due to prostate cancer.

“If you look at the biology and theory behind brachyherapy, it makes sense: you can really give a lot more dose with brachytherapy than with EBRT alone to the prostate”, said Xinglei Shen, a lead researcher at Jefferson's Department of Radiation Oncology. Further, it has been concluded by the squad that a deeper scrutiny of brachyherapy is still needed to find if it is an effective treatment strategy for high-grade prostate cancer patients.