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Movember and prostate cancer treatment in Pardubice

28. 11. 2015

Movember is the name of the charity. Each year, the charity uses its November awareness campaign to persuade men to grow moustaches and use their inventiveness 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 for their physical and mental recovery.


External beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer has moved forward at the turn of this millennium. New radiation methods have emerged. Combinations of radiation with hormone therapy have improved treatment. Radiotherapy planning using computed tomography has triggered the development of modern techniques - intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) has taken us to an even higher level of quality. Advanced forms of radiotherapy spare healthy tissue around the prostate.
Modern imaging methods have brought significant advances. 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.
The advantage of intensity-modulated rotational radiotherapy is shorter radiation time with comparable or better dose distribution compared to conventional IMRT techniques. The Multiscan Cancer Centre in Pardubice has been using this technique (RapidArc) as one of three radiotherapy centres in the Czech Republic since 2010.
Image-guided radiotherapy is an irradiation technique that uses verification of the patient's position before or during irradiation, so that it is possible to correct inaccuracies in the settings during each fraction of radiotherapy. 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.

We started to perform the IMRT technique in 2003 as the second facility in the Czech Republic. Since then, more than 1,300 men with prostate cancer have been irradiated in Pardubice with this modern treatment method. Our experience was presented especially by doc. MUDr. Vaňásek, CSc., prof. MUDr. Odrážka, PhD. and MUDr. Martin Doležel, PhD. at a number of congresses and published in the Czech and foreign professional press.