Dr. Bernard Eden: My name is Dr. Bernard Eden and I’m the medical director of radiation oncology at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Midwestern Regional Medical Center. Stereotactic radiosurgery is a radiation technique where we deliver a very precise dose of radiation and a very large dose of radiation to the tumor. Typically this is done in from one to five sessions.
For prostate cancer we have a very powerful combination for stereotactic radiosurgery. We use Calypso GPS guidance in order to localize and track the prostate target and we use Varian's RapidArc system in order to deliver a very precise dose to that target and the advantage of doing this is this system allows us to track the motion of the target while the radiation is being delivered.
Well, for Mr. Lewis he had a very early prostate cancer and his prostate gland was not very large. We felt that he was going to be an excellent candidate for prostate radiosurgery.
Terry Lewis: My name is Terry Lewis, I’m from Newton Iowa. I came to Cancer Treatment Centers of America to explore more options for me, and there was a lot more available there than in my home town. Dr. Eden and I had discussed my options and the stereotactic radiosurgery was the best.
Dr. Bernard Eden: Traditionally it took about eight to nine weeks of external beam radiation to treat the prostate cancer with radiation techniques. However, with the radiosurgery we can compress that treatment into five treatments; we do it over about two weeks. We treated Mr. Lewis in five sessions and each session lasted approximately 15-20 minutes. Stereotactic radiosurgery is a noninvasive procedure; it is not a surgical procedure. However, it is alternative to surgery for certain cases.
Terry Lewis: My treatment with the Calypso took me about two weeks and I was done. Never felt so good, I just actually the treatments were very easy and short and I never had any - never was in any pain and I feel very good. It was a cancer and I knew I could fight it, and I knew I could beat it and I knew I was in the best hands.