Cyberknife Radiotherapy     Could Change Prostate            Cancer Treatment 

An exciting new development for men with metastatic cancer is being trialed by NHS England, the body responsible for introducing new treatments in the NHS.

Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) is being tried on a limited number men with three or less sites where tumors are known to exist.

Current research would indicate that men with this number could have some benefit from SABR treatment.

SABR treatment, for East and North Herts patients, is given in the Cyber Knife radiotherapy suite at Mount Vernon Hospital, part of The East and North Herts NHS Trust.

Radiotherapy utilises X-rays to treat cancers.

SABR radiotherapy can target the cancers with high accuracy and a reduction of radiation to the surrounding tissue.

The aim of SABR treatment is to completely destroy the targeted tumor.

This means that a higher dose of radiotherapy can be given in as few as 3-5 sessions. The patient attends as an outpatient and this means less time spent waiting around and relatively fewer side effects.

Other potential benefits are, to prevent the spread of the cancer, delay the need for chemotherapy, reduce pain at the tumor site and improve the patients overall quality of life.

During the trial, patients who have undergone this treatment will be asked to feed back information as to their ongoing state of health.

The feedback may be by having scans carried out to check on the treatment effectiveness, blood tests or patient to doctor consultation. Additional information may be collected as the trial progresses

Further information on this groundbreaking treatment will be posted on this website as it becomes available.