Prostate cancer treatment giving hope to patients

Dan* isn't his real name is on the hospital bed awaiting to be released.

He is scheduled to discuss the situation at 3pm. This is hours after having undergone brachytherapy, a precise minimally invading procedure used to treat for prostate cancer.

Being always concerned about their health and wellbeing, the 49-year old father of three has made it his habit to undergo medical checks at least once every year. This includes screening for the prostate-specific antibody (PSA).

"Sometime last year I realised that my PSA had started rising slightly so I engaged my urologist so he started doing an investigation into what could be happening in me," the doctor says.

The urologist diagnosed him with prostatitis, which is a condition caused by infection.

"He put me on antibiotics for bigger part of last year and sometimes it would go down, sometimes it could rise so this triggered concern that we needed to do further tests," the doctor says.

He underwent an MRI but the results came back negative. The doctor suggested that be tested with an PET scan, which that he took in June however, it wasn't very transparent neither.

The experts who performed an PET test suggested the patient takes a biopsy. This is an operation to take a small piece of tissue or sample of cell from the human body so it can be analyzed in a lab.

He was diagnosed with cancer in July. was admitted for a biopsy at Nairobi Hospital where the biopsy samples were taken, of which six were found to be showing some cancer cells.

Dan is one of the at-least 100 cancerous prostate patients who have received the treatment known as brachytherapy.

The process that took only two hours restored his hope of living a full and fulfilling life for the rest of his life.

"I was told the procedure will cost Sh800,000 but you know money is nothing compared to health as opposed to spending millions when you are hit," the doctor says.

Prof. Peter Mungai, a consultant urologist at Nairobi Hospital, says early prostate cancer is curable in contrast to more advanced cases, which must be treated with palliative.

The disease is usually diagnosed by PSA which is a blood test that is used to identify prostate cancer. Prostate cancer can trigger increased levels of PSA.

Mungai has admitted prostate cancer has become a serious issue for Kenyan as it is the primary most common cause of death for males.

According to the experts that during the procedure an instrument is inserted through an area of skin that is between the scrotum as well as the perineum, and then through the prostate.

Brachytherapy is a method to inject the radioactive seeds (pellets) inside the prostate gland in order to eliminate cancerous prostate cells. The seeds can emit either a large or a small amount of radiation.

"The treatment of brachytherapy can be a viable alternative to surgery, which has greater precision and carries lesser morbidity. If you are treated in the morning and you can even be home by evening," Dr. A.S. says.

"It is a kind of radiotherapy that allows you to inject the radiotherapy into the prostate instead of treating it externally. The prostate is left intact, and there isn't any major surgery scheduled to be performed," he explains.

The procedure was launched by the Nairobi hospital in the year 2017 and is currently carried out on 112 patients, with a the rate of 98 percent survival.

Dr. Frank Kahmann, a urologist from Germany The first to develop the technology of brachytherapy. is the leader of the team.