Copyright
©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Dec 10, 2015; 6(6): 189-193
Published online Dec 10, 2015. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i6.189
Published online Dec 10, 2015. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i6.189
Current role of spacers for prostate cancer radiotherapy
Michael Pinkawa, Department of Radiation Oncology, RWTH Aachen University, 52057 Aachen, Germany
Author contributions: Pinkawa M solely contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest is declared by any of the authors.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Michael Pinkawa, MD, Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstrasse 30, 52057 Aachen, Germany. mpinkawa@ukaachen.de
Telephone: +49-241-8035314 Fax: +49-241-8082543
Received: May 28, 2015
Peer-review started: May 31, 2015
First decision: August 7, 2015
Revised: August 12, 2015
Accepted: August 30, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: December 10, 2015
Processing time: 195 Days and 3.1 Hours
Peer-review started: May 31, 2015
First decision: August 7, 2015
Revised: August 12, 2015
Accepted: August 30, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: December 10, 2015
Processing time: 195 Days and 3.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Radiotherapy is widely used for the treatment of prostate cancer. Technical advances allow improved tumor control with increasing prescription doses, but rectal wall is known to be a dose-limiting organ. A new method that has been increasingly used in the last years is the application of a biodegradable spacer to increase the distance between the prostate and rectal wall. Clinical studies, including a prospective randomized trial, have reported considerable dosimetric advantages for the rectum, well tolerated insertion procedures and radiotherapy treatments.