Starting to do some research on the next phase, and finding some more new terms, new information, old information new to me, and more. And in the midst of all that finding more information about steps that seem to be fading into the past.
But first, I finally found the specific Cesium isotope that is in the seeds I had implanted on Dec. 10th:
Cesium-131, which I know, is just thrilling. I'm trying to contain myself. Really. But, as silly as it sounds, finding this specific information is a bit of a thrill. It's relatively new, having been approved by the FDA in 2003, and the first implants were done using it in October 2004. The link goes to the IsoRay site - the company who developed the process for using Cesium-131.
As for IMRT, I did some research on it over the weekend and am convinced that the theory I've read so far seems to make sense. There's a good, if a bit dated (2004), research paper on the
Prostate Cancer Research Institute pages - a long read, but worth the time.
I think I mentioned that the next immediate step is to do some scans (scheduled for Wednesday) to map out exact location of the prostate. You'd think they'd know by now, wouldn't you? I know I think that. And I must have had a look that said that when I talked to my doctor last week, so he explained that things move around a bit. And this technique is extremely accurate so they want to make sure they're targeting all the right stuff, and not hitting much surrounding tissue. The research paper above shows some fascinating data and maybe I can be forgiven for stealing one of their graphics for illustration purposes. A bit tough to see maybe, but it's a map of the radiation to the prostate (in the center) that encroaches on the rectum only minimally, as well as other surrounding tissue. The usability part of me finds it incredible that in the screen above "right" is on the left side, and "left" is on the right side. Hello? It's a computer program...
And there's more...
