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Why? |
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A large number of prostate cancer patients experience rectal bleeding and other severe side effects in the rectum after their radiotherapy treatment. Dose escalation above 70Gy improves the local control significantly but increases the incidence and severity of the rectal side effects. Several publications report rectal toxicity frequencies of 15 - 50% with grade II or higher. Many techniques to reduce the dose to the rectum have been tried, such as 3-D Conformal Radiotherapy, IMRT, rectal balloons, radioprotective drugs etc., but with limited success. |
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How? |
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Rectafix provides a safe and effective way to prevent rectal bleeding by minimizing the amount of rectal tissue that gets a high dose. In this way the risk and severity of rectal toxicity is significantly reduced. This method was initially used in proton therapy and has also been applied to 3D-conformal photon therapy. Over 140 patients have been treated with this method so far and none of them has suffered from rectal bleeding. Rectafix is easy to combine with standard radiotherapy treatment techniques and it is compatible with both X-ray, CT, MR and EPID:s for planning, simulation and verification imaging.
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Clinical example: |
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Prostate dose plan without Rectafix |
Prostate dose plan with Rectafix |
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DVH of rectal tissue without Rectafix |
DVH of rectal tissue with Rectafix |
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Rectafix provides a safe and effective method to prevent rectal bleeding and other side effects from external beam radiotherapy of prostate cancer. Check the Downloads page for brochure and other material. Rectafix is CE-marked and available in most countries. Check the Distributor page for your nearest Rectafix distributor! It is not yet available for sale in the USA, pending regulatory clearance US and international patents pending |
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