This month is Men's Health Awareness Month, which includes focus on the important topic of prostate cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their life. With odds like that, we know how important it is to continue to research the treatment of this type of cancer.

A recent study from the @Medizinische Universität Innsbruck evaluated the use of the Brainlab ExacTrac Dynamic® patient positioning and monitoring system for quantifying and correcting prostatic motion during radiation therapy.

❓ Why is ExacTrac Dynamic useful in prostate cancer treatments?

To fully take advantage of hypofractionated radiotherapy treatments, prostate motion has to be taken into account. As stated by the authors of the study, “reducing safety margins can broaden the therapeutic window in stereotactic treatments and alleviate concerns for toxicity in high dose-per-fraction treatment schedules.”

❓ What were the results?

ExacTrac Dynamic X-Ray monitoring of implanted fiducial markers was able to identify and correct unpredictable prostatic motion. This motion was significant in one third of all monitored sessions, despite VMAT treatments lasting only a few minutes.

The authors’ analysis also confirmed that uncorrected deviations may continuously increase over the duration of a VMAT arc, which can have a direct impact on toxicity and target dose coverage. Ultimately, using ExacTrac Dynamic to account for these deviations proved to be a reliable method to improve the precision of stereotactic irradiations of the prostate.

👉 Get more details on the study titled, "Dynamic intrafractional position monitoring with implanted fiducial markers for enhanced accuracy in radiotherapy of prostate cancer," here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37523057/

#radiotherapy #oncology #radiosurgery