HDR 2 fractions for Prostate Cancer

A single high dose rate brachytherapy (HDR) treatment combined with a short course of external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) is a highly effective and well tolerated treatment for men with intermediate risk prostate cancer. High cancer control rates have also been reported with HDR used on its own, without the EBRT. The challenge has been to determine what HDR dose to use with a move towards one or two fractions by several investigators. These schedules are reported to be well tolerated in the short term, but with little long term data. The objective of this study is to investigate HDR monotherapy given as either one fraction of 19 Gy or two fractions of 13.5 Gy in a randomized phase II clinical trial. The primary endpoint is patient reported toxicity and health related quality of life at 1 year, and efficacy data will be also be analyzed. Sample size for the study is 174 patients, which we expect to accrue within 18 months.