Radiation Therapy — External Beam

External beam radiation therapy is by far the simplest of therapies. Over a six to seven week period, the patient will receive a radiation treatment lasting about 15 minutes, 5 days a week. The radiation is aimed at the prostate from many different angles in an attempt to reduce the dosage to the surrounding tissues while maximizing the dosage to the prostate and the cancer.

The advantages of external radiation therapy is its ease of administration. No surgery, no anesthesia, no blood loss. The biggest disadvantage is that the cancer is left in place and one must hope that the amount of radiation delivered is enough to cure the cancer.

During the last two to three weeks of treatment, diarrhea and urinary urgency and frequency are quite common and on occasion so severe that the treatments need to be temporarily halted. These symptoms usually resolve two to three weeks after the radiation treatments have ceased. Permanent radiation injury to the bladder or rectum occurs in a small percent of patients creating chronic pain and/or bleeding. Difficulty with erections (impotence) occurs in 35% of patients who were having no problems pretreatment.