SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ: ARAY) announced today that data from the PACE – Prostate Advances in Comparative Evidence – trial indicate the company's CyberKnife® robotic radiotherapy platform is superior to conventional linear accelerators in reducing the incidence of late grade two or higher bladder toxicity associated with prostate cancer stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) treatments. The two-year follow-up data presented at the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology annual congress showed that bladder side effects were experienced half as often with CyberKnife SBRT as with conventional linear accelerator delivered SBRT.

Long-term side effects can affect patients for the rest of their lives. Technology that can minimize the risk of these side effects is critical. The PACE data are important because they suggest that men treated with CyberKnife SBRT are less likely to experience long-term side effects that can impact them over the course of their lives compared with men receiving conventional linear accelerator delivered SBRT.

SBRT treatments involve the delivery of very high doses of externally administered radiation over a small number of sessions, offering convenience for patients, compared with conventional radiation therapy which requires substantially more treatment sessions. In the PACE trial, SBRT was delivered in 5 sessions while conventional radiation therapy was delivered in 20 or 39 sessions. SBRT treatments increase patient satisfaction by reducing discomfort and scheduling inconvenience versus conventional radiation treatments and can minimize patient out-of-pocket costs.

Dr. Alison Tree, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and leader of the Uro-oncology Clinical Trials team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, who presented the data at ESTRO, said: "Our aim was to understand whether we could safely increase the dose of targeted radiation per day, allowing us to reduce the number of treatments required. This data has shown very promising results that suggest potentially curative prostate radiotherapy can be given with very few side effects for patients with stereotactic body radiotherapy over five days."

Click here to listen to Dr. Tree discuss the PACE trial.

Treating prostate cancer with radiation is challenging: the prostate gland can move as much as 10 mm in as little as 30 seconds in an unpredictable manner, often caused by normal patient bodily functions such as filling of the bladder, gas in the bowel, or even slight patient movement during the procedure. In addition, the prostate is surrounded by sensitive organs and tissues.

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