Prostate brachytherapy

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Risks

By Mayo Clinic staff

Living With Cancer

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Prostate brachytherapy causes side effects, including:

  • Difficulty starting urination
  • Frequently feeling an urgent need to urinate
  • Feeling a burning sensation when urinating
  • Blood in urine
  • Needing to urinate at night
  • Not being able to empty your bladder completely
  • Narrowing of the tube that carries urine from your bladder to the outside of your body (urethra)
  • Erectile dysfunction
  • Bleeding from the rectum
  • Blood in stool
  • Diarrhea

Doctors use medications to reduce side effects of treatment. Side effects of prostate brachytherapy may become less noticeable over time.

How you prepare Why it's done
References
  1. Prostate cancer. Fort Washington, Pa.: National Comprehensive Cancer Network. http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/prostate.pdf. Accessed Dec. 16, 2010.
  2. D'Amico AV, et al. Radiation therapy for prostate cancer. In: Wein AJ, et al. Campbell-Walsh Urology. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/208746819-6/0/1445/0.html. Accessed Dec. 16, 2010.
  3. Pisansky TM, et al. High-dose-rate brachytherapy in the curative treatment of patients with localized prostate cancer. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2008;83:1364.
  4. Stock RG, et al. Current topics in the treatment of prostate cancer with low-dose-rate brachytherapy. Urologic Clinics of North America. 2010;37:83.
  5. Radiation therapy for prostate cancer. American Society for Radiation Oncology. http://www.rtanswers.com/downloads/prostate.pdf. Accessed Dec. 16, 2010.
  6. Brachytherapy. RadiologyInfo.org. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=brachy. Accessed Dec. 16, 2010.
  7. Radiation therapy. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/ProstateCancer/DetailedGuide/prostate-cancer-treating-radiation-therapy. Accessed Dec. 28, 2010.
MY01635 Feb. 19, 2011

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