Biotech Values

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>>Except for radiation seeds, you don't mention radiation. Is there a reason?<<

Good question. Not a good reason.

I think 'radiosurgery' (Cyberknife) is probably the best method of treating prostate cancer with radiation. Compared to da Vinci my feeling is that it is a little less efficacious but there are a lot less side effects.

I think it is a little less efficacious, because since PSA doesn't generally go down all the way to 0 after radiosurgery, it doesn't kill all the prostate tissue. And if it doesn't kill all the prostate tissue, it means the chance that prostate cancer will come back is not 0. This is not the case with da Vinci, where PSA can actually go down all the way to 0 and stay there, and that happens something like 95+% of the time.

Regarding side effects of radiosurgery, I think it is too new to know for sure. You want hundreds of patients followed for 10 years or more, and that hasn't happened yet. But usually patients walk out of the treatment center with no obvious ill effects, and in the near term, most don't have severe problems with incontinence, impotence, etc. So it looks like a treatment which is much milder on the patient and preliminary studies indicates that it works pretty well on the cancer - though not as well as surgery as argued above.

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