Until now, men with penis cancer, which affects about 1 in every 100,000 men in developed countries, typically had to undergo surgery to remove the caner. This usually involves surgically removing the glans (head of the penis), which has a dramatic impact on sexual activity and function as well as urinary function. Now, however, a penis cancer treatment avoid this drastic step and thus lets men continue to have sex after undergoing treatment.
The penis cancer treatment is a type of radiotherapy called brachytherapy, which is also used to treat prostate cancer. Recent research has shown that use of brachytherapy for penis cancer has a five-year proability of survival of 85 percent.
Another advantage of brachytherapy for penis cancer is that it allows men to maintain their urinary function (i.e., they don’t experience urinary incontinence).
Brachytherapy as penis cancer treatment
In the study, which involved 201 men with the disease, 79 percent of the subjects who chose brachytherapy for penis cancer survived at least a decade after treatment compared with an 85 percent ten-year survival rate among those who had selected surgery. Eight men required surgery of their penis, while 18 men had to undergo partial removal when their cancer returned. Penis cancer recurrence was associated with having tumors larger than 4 centimeters in diameter and/or cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes in the groin.
These figures make the option of brachytherapy attractive for men who need to choose a penis cancer treatment. But what is brachytherapy?
Brachytherapy involves inserting extremely thin radioactive wires in or near the tumor in the penis. The wires send out low-dose radiation for several days, which in turn kills the cancer cells. According to Dr. Alexandre Escande, the study results show that brachytherapy “is effective in controlling and eradicating the cancer and allows a high number of men to preserve their penises.”
Reference
Escande A et al. Brachytherapy for conservative treatment of invasive penile carcinoma: prognostic factors and long-term analysis of outcome. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics 2017 Feb 28
