title: Report of a consensus meeting on focal low dose rate brachytherapy for prostate cancer.
abstract: What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Whole gland brachytherapy has been used to successfully treat prostate cancer but the protocol for focal therapy has not previously been established. The consensus findings provide guidance on patient selection for focal brachytherapy as well as recommendations for conducting therapy and patient follow-up. Low dose rate prostate brachytherapy is an effective treatment for localized prostate cancer. Recently, it has been considered for use in a focused manner whereby treatment is targeted only to areas of prostate cancer. The objective of focal brachytherapy is to provide effective cancer control for low-risk disease but with reduced genitourinary and rectal side-effects in a cost-effective way. We report on the outputs of a consensus meeting of international experts in brachytherapy and focal therapy convened to consider the feasibility and potential development of focal brachytherapy. A number of factors were considered for focal brachytherapy including optimal patient selection, disease characterization and localization, treatment protocols and outcome measures. The consensus meeting also addressed the design of a clinical trial that would assess the oncological outcomes and side-effect profiles resulting from focal brachytherapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Guildford, UK. stephen.langley@gmail.com
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Langley
authors.forename: Hashim U
authors.initials: HU
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: Bashar
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Al-Qaisieh
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bostwick
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dickinson
authors.forename: Francisco Gomez
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Veiga
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grimm
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Machtens
authors.forename: Ferran
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Guedea
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Emberton
mesh_terms: D001706:Biopsy; D001918:Brachytherapy / Q000379:methods*; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D018579:Patient Selection; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D016896:Treatment Outcome