How Does The Radiation Oncologist Focus The Radiation Only On My Prostate Gland?

March 16, 2009 -- Question: How does the radiation oncologist focus the radiation only on my prostate gland?

Answer: Every attempt is made to maximize the treatment to the prostate gland, and minimize it to the normal surrounding organs namely, the bladder and rectum.

Whereas a decade ago, we didn't have the technology to focus on the prostate gland and a small margin beyond it, in the year 2008 and beyond, we have the technology to do that. Various centers across the country and throughout the world are using either small radio beacons the size of a grain of rice, or other types of technologies that allow them to track exactly where the prostate is and thereby minimize the amount of normal tissue that's treated by the radiation beam and maximize that treatment to the prostate.