BXTAccelyon attend the 9th Annual Urology in General Practice (UroGP) Symposium 2018

In August 2018, we were thrilled to attend the 9th Annual Urology in General Practice (UroGP) Symposium 2018 conference held in Melbourne. The event represented Australia’s leading forum on Urological health specifically for general practitioners (GPs). An immersive day addressed to GPs and nurses alike to explore complex urological health issues and review the latest innovative developments in the field of urology.

The program for the day consisted of presentations from nationally and internationally recognised experts, exploring such topics as PSA testing, robotic prostatectomy, low dose rate brachytherapy as well as the role of GPs in active surveillance for prostate cancer, amongst others. Speaker Dr. Michael Chao presented on low dose rate brachytherapy (LDR-B), a curative treatment which has been used in Australia in the management of non-metastatic prostate cancer since 1998. More recently, the use of Iodine-125 for permanent LDR brachytherapy implants has gained popularity and received widespread treatment acceptance.

Chao further highlighted the viability of LDR brachytherapy as a treatment option by presenting the over-time results of the prospective case series, Chao M et al. J Contemp Brachytherapy 2018: a case series which assessed the effectiveness and safety of permanent LDR brachytherapy for patients with clinically localised prostate cancer at a private radiation oncology centre (Radiation Oncology Victoria) in Melbourne, Australia. The results of this series are in parallel with regionally-based published research as well as wider studies such as The Ascende-RT study and The Central European Journal of Urology (CEJU) study. All of which provide clinicians with long-term data about the benefits of LDR brachytherapy for patients with clinically-localised, low-to-intermediate risk prostate cancer.

This growing cohort of encouraging research continues to support brachytherapy as an effective treatment option and a key modality in select men with prostate cancer.

As prostate cancer continues to rise in Australia, GPs can be much more than referrers. It is events such as this that highlight the importance of raising awareness of the variety of prostate cancer treatments available and empowering both GPs and patients to host more open conversations that enhance decision-making and drive better outcomes!