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I was diagnosed only last week with locally advanced Prostate Cancer, Gleason stage 8. I'm aged 54 and while not enthralled by the prospects of the side effects of Hormone & Radio therapies, my priority is to go for a cure but at the same time I want to examine every possibility before deciding on which course of treatment to follow.
Today I visited the Dove Clinic in London which offers alternative and complimentary treatments. They use a therapry called Photo Dynamic Therapy (PDT) and Sonodynamic Therapy (SDT). PDT basically uses light sensitive substances which accumulate selectively in cancer cells which starts a chain reaction and leads to delivering more oxygen to the tumour site. SDT uses the non thermal effects of ultra sound to destruct tumours.
Has anybody come across these treatments or had any experiences of them? Results so far seem to be very good but they mainly see patients with late stage cancers. The side effects are quite minimal and low risk compared to coventional treatments.
Please contact me if you can help. Many thanks,
Martin
Sorry to hear of your problems Martin. I wrote up a piece about Phto Dynamic Therapy last year for the site. You can find it here PDT
I can't say anything about Sonodynamic Therapy (SDT) because I thought this was really experimental at the present time and its use still confined to mice. It seems to work on the same principle as PDT and depend on tumour cells taking up more of the chemical than normal cells, an issue that always concerns me.
Good luck if you go that way - I have nothing but admiration for the pioneers of this world - without them there would be no advance.
Re: Re: Photo Dynamic Therapy and Sonodynamic Therapy
Hi Terry,
Many thanks for your reply. I think that the Dove Clinic have made progressions with this treatment but I think that I will have to start on Casodex for now to bring this under control and then come back to this when my PSA is down (it's currently very high at 48)and look again. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to find out more here is the link:_
http://www.doveclinic.com/site/treatments/treatments/l_photodynamic.htm
If I learn of anything more I'll post it here. Fantastic web site by the way!
Best wishes,
Martin
Re: Re: Re: Re: Photo Dynamic Therapy and Sonodynamic Therapy
That's an excellent piece, Steve. Thank you. I will link it from the website.
The crux of the issue with PDT, as I see it is the problem of take up of the photosensitizer. Both normal cells and tumour cells will take this up and the 'hope' that the tumour cells will absorb and retain more seems a long shot to me.
I think this paragraph sums it up very well:
The benefits of prostate cancer treatment depend upon eradication of cancer within the gland, while the harms of treatment are related to unwanted effects outside the gland. When treatment is limited to either the prostate gland itself, or the areas of cancer within the gland where possible, then there is the potential to achieve the survival benefits of radical treatments in those men who require it, while avoiding the associated adverse effects. Such an approach would have to eradicate clinically relevant cancer, while at the same time leave the structures that surround the prostate (including the rhabdosphincter, rectum, neurovascular bundles and ejaculatory apparatus) intact. Eventually, a systemic but targeted therapy will likely meet these requirements; however, as no obvious compound with these attributes is currently in clinical studies, it is fair to assume that we are at least a decade away from such a treatment becoming a reality.
Hi Steve & Terry,
Many thanks for your imput. After more research I agree with you. For now, I am starting on Casodex to make sure that things are contained for now while I look at other complimentary therapies.
Regards,
Martin
