Research
The Research Department at KSK Medical Cancer Center of Irvine works closely with our Center's radiation oncologists and partner medical oncologists and urologists, along with our physicists and local medical students. We are focused on evaluating our prostate cancer patient treatment paradigms and assessing the feasibility and validity of novel imaging biomarkers for characterizing prostate cancer recurrence. For evaluating our prostate cancer patient treatment paradigms, we have focused on assessing the short-term and long-term clinical outcomes of prostate cancer patients treated with combination high-dose rate brachytherapy and external beam radiotherapy and use of a hydrogel rectal spacer implant. We have evaluated these clinical outcomes based on physician-assessed toxicity derived from the Common Terminology for Adverse Events reporting guidelines.
For assessing the use of novel imaging biomarkers for characterizing prostate cancer recurrence, we currently are enrolling patients in Phase III clinical trials and hope to publish our results on these imaging agents soon for characterizing disease recurrence and monitoring response to therapy. Our research is closely tied with the Medici Foundation, which supports most our Department's research endeavors. In the past 10 years, we have published over 10 manuscripts appearing most notably in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, Brachytherapy, Journal of Radiation Oncology, and Translational Cancer Research.