Česky
Movember is the name of a charity that tries to persuade men to grow moustaches every November with an awareness campaign to help turn the spotlight on men's health. Men suffering from prostate or testicular cancer should receive the treatment and care they desperately need to heal physically and mentally. The name Movember is a combination of two English words - mustache and November.
This year's strategy for men's health care is built on three traditional pillars: know - prevent - help. "Know" primarily means supporting scientific research projects, improving and expanding treatment options, and providing scholarships. "Prevent" is mainly about education regarding men's health. A series of cutting-edge audiovisual materials on all urological cancers have been produced under the auspices of the highest professional bodies, the Urological and Oncological Societies. "Help" is primarily assistance in the implementation of the purchase of instrumentation.
One of the main treatment modalities for prostate cancer is external radiotherapy, which is traditionally of a high standard in Pardubice. At the turn of this millennium, the development of external radiotherapy moved forward significantly. New irradiation methods have emerged. Combinations of irradiation with hormone therapy had an impact on improving treatment. Radiotherapy planning with the use of computed tomography has triggered the development of modern techniques - intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) has reached an even higher quality level. Advanced forms of radiotherapy spare healthy tissues around the prostate.
Modern imaging methods have brought significant advances. At our department, we routinely take advantage of magnetic resonance imaging for prostate contouring. In cooperation with the General University Hospital in Prague, we examine some patients using PET/CT - a so-called hybrid imaging method that combines computed tomography (CT) with positron emission tomography (PET) - with choline.
Image-guided radiotherapy is an irradiation technique that uses verification of the patient's position before or during irradiation, so that adjustments can be made during each fraction of radiotherapy to correct for inaccuracies in the settings. It is not only in the irradiation of prostate cancer that we use a computed tomography scanner as part of this technique. We therefore irradiate more accurately with this method. We can thus reduce the safety margin around the prostate. We irradiate a smaller target volume and thus protect the healthy tissues around it.
The advantage of intensity-modulated rotational radiotherapy is a shorter irradiation time with comparable or better dose distribution compared to the conventional IMRT technique. The Multiscan Cancer Centre in Pardubice, which is part of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre of the Pardubice Region, has been using this technique (RapidArc) since 2010.
We started performing IMRT in 2003 as the second workplace in the Czech Republic. Since then, more than 1,700 men with prostate cancer have been irradiated in Pardubice using this modern treatment method. Our experience was presented especially by doc. MUDr. J. Vaňásek, CSc., prof. MUDr. K. Odrážka, Ph.D. and doc. MUDr. M. Doležel, Ph.D. at a number of congresses and published in our and foreign professional press.
Since January this year, we have been irradiating prostate cancer patients on the new TrueBeam linear accelerator from the American company Varian, which is designed from the ground up to be able to irradiate moving targets with advanced speed and accuracy approaching that of a Leksell gamma knife. This new type of irradiator has further reduced irradiation times and allowed us to irradiate more patients. It has brought our cancer center to a higher level again.
