Kent trust rolls out Radium service after successful pilot
Nuclear medicine physicist Peter O’Sullivan, patient Don Wise and consultant Meeran Naji.
A pilot at Maidstone Hospital providing targeted radionuclide therapy for patients with advanced prostate cancer has proved so successful that the service will now be rolled out across the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.
The pilot of the radium service began at Kent Oncology Centre in March 2015. It was set up by radiology consultant Meeran Naji and nuclear medicine physicist Peter O’Sullivan, supported by oncologist Sharon Beesley.
Radium-223 is given by monthly injection over six months to patients with castration resistant prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. Radium-223 delivers a very high radiation dose over a very short range in tissue, less than 1mm. The uptake is greatest in the most active bone cells. In this way radium therapy is very specific to the more active cancerous areas of the bones.
This radium treatment has been shown to improve survival and can potentially improve quality of life and reduce pain.
See the full report on the front page of the September 2016 issue of RAD Magazine.
