Does a delay in external beam radiation therapy after tissue diagnosis affect outcome for men with prostate carcinoma?

Background: Physicians involved in the care of men diagnosed with prostate carcinoma must assess the urgency of treatment. For those men who choose external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), the delay from the time of biopsy to treatment may be stressful. There are limited data on the consequences of radiation treatment delay.

Soft tissue sarcomas treated with postoperative external beam radiotherapy with and without low-dose-rate brachytherapy.

Purpose: Patients treated for soft tissue sarcoma with adjuvant low-dose-rate brachytherapy (BT) plus external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) were compared with those treated with adjuvant EBRT alone. The hypothesis was that higher doses from postoperative BT plus EBRT would improve local tumor control.

Methods And Materials: The medical records of 130 sarcoma patients definitively treated between February 1983 and February 2001 were reviewed.