A trial looking at the side effects of external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer and quality of life during and after treatment

Please note this trial is no longer recruiting patients.

This trial is comparing side effects of external beam radiotherapy only with external beam radiotherapy plus high dose rate brachytherapy. The study is focussing on men’s quality of life during and after both types of treatment.

Doctors often treat prostate cancer with external beam radiotherapy. If suitable they also give an extra dose of radiotherapy. This is called a booster dose. This booster dose can be given as external beam radiotherapy or as internal radiotherapy. Internal radiotherapy is also called brachytherapy. In this type of treatment, the radioactive sources are inside the body, delivering the radiation directly to the cancer. So brachytherapy gives a high dose of radiotherapy to the prostate cancer without affecting too much of the surrounding healthy tissue.

The aims of this study are to compare the side effects of external beam radiotherapy only with external beam radiotherapy plus high dose rate brachytherapy and to see how these treatments affect quality of life.

Recruitment

Start 01/01/2006

End 04/01/2011

Phase

Phase 2

Who can enter

You can enter this trial if you

Have prostate cancer
Are due to have external beam radiotherapy to treat your prostate cancer, with or without high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy
Have had a CT scan or MRI scan and a bone scan
Have satisfactory blood results including PSA test
Are well enough to take part in the trial (performance status 0 to 2)

You cannot enter this trial if you

Have already started radiotherapy
Are not able to fill in a quality of life questionnaire

Trial design

This is a quality of life study. It will recruit 194 men. Half the men (97) will have external beam radiotherapy only and the other 97 will have external beam radiotherapy with a high dose rate brachytherapy boost. The doctor decides which treatment is best for you.

You will be asked to fill in a questionnaire before and just after your course of treatment and then after