This is new to me! Although it seems to have been around a while. I've just read about it in a local magazine. It's to late for me, I had RP. Suggest anybody having radiotherapy to prostate or prostate bed checks that it is being used.
"SpaceOAR Hydrogel is an absorbable hydrogel that temporarily creates space between the prostate and the rectum, reducing the dose delivered to rectum during prostate radiation therapy. It has already been used to help over 50,000 prostate cancer patients worldwide plus it has been shown to reduce the risk of side effects such as rectal bleeding, bowel dysfunction and incontinence plus can help to maintain sexual potency."
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Graham49
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SpaceOar is controversial, some on here like TA are against it, others like me who actually had SpaceOar with HDR-BT are for it. Lately, there's been several posts about it, suggest searching 'SpaceOar' on this forum if you're interested in it.
Hmm... I had HDR Brachytherapy (April 26) and completed 25 days of IMRT July 8th.
Before I started IMRT, my MSK doc advised me to start taking Metamucil daily to help with potential episodes of diarrhea and to avoid coffee. I bought a jar of 300 caps from Amazon and started taking 3 caps daily.Results: except for a few loose BM's, it was a breeze and no problems to date. Also,no Space Oar.
My RO explained that since I was G9, the SpaceOAR Hydrogel could apply slight pressure on the prostate, potentially causing the cells to spread.
Best
We met with our radiation oncologist and she is against using it. She just wrote a paper on it. She stated there are complications with getting it are equal to the men who get complications from the radiation. Statistically no benefit.
I had proton beam therapy in Korea in 2013. Great outcome other than a small radiation burn on rectal wall adjacent to prostate. It started an occasional bleed about 6 months after therapy ended. I was told that this was likely to occur. Every six months or so I get a slight bleed after a gassy evacuation of the bowel.
On my return from Korea I found out about SpaceOAR. It is now used as standard treatment by the National Cancer Centre in Seoul. I wish I had used it.
As an aside, the Australian agent for SpaceOAR, sponsored the production of set of videos telling my story about my therapy and subsequent authoring three prostate cancer books. The latest book was launched on Amazon recently.
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