It delivers a dose of radiation that’s over 300 times higher than traditional radiation therapy in just a fraction of a second. This induces something called the “FLASH effect” — a not-entirely-understood phenomenon in which the radiation still attacks the tumor, but doesn’t harm surrounding tissue.
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cesces
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While interesting, it would be a very long way off before this would be covered by insurance for Prostate Cancer patients in my opinion. And therefore this has no practical value to anyone needing treatment anytime in the near future, or at least until such a time that they actually create larger trials where prostate cancer patients are eligible. There's really nothing even close to being conclusive in this article as far as long-term effectiveness due to the newness of the treatment and short follow-up time.
The article's description of traditional radiation therapy is also woefully incomplete and just describes what amounts to the oldest treatment modality. Most patients these days are doing SBRT which is typically 5 treatments over 10 or so days (one treatment every other day).
It could be more effective treatment for bone metastases to offer temporary pain relief but radiation unfortunately doesn't cure Prostate Cancer that has progressed to distant metastases. So this is mainly possibly promising to those that in the future may find themselves at a very late stage in disease progression.
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