In a recent analysis led by Ryan Hankins, MD, urologist at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, researchers explored a compelling new angle on the use of rectal spacers during prostate cancer radiotherapy. While rectal spacers have long been used to reduce rectal toxicity from radiation therapy, emerging evidence suggests their benefits may extend further, including a potential impact on erectile dysfunction (ED) outcomes.
“We use rectal spacers to help prevent [adverse events] from radiation therapy for prostate cancer. The spacers [were] developed to help with rectal toxicity, primarily to prevent rectal toxicity from radiation therapy. We are seeing now that there may be other benefits,” Hankins explains in an interview with Targeted OncologyTM.
The study utilized a massive dataset drawn from Medicare and included 247,250 patients with prostate cancer who received radiation therapy between 2015 to 2022. Rather than focusing on individual patient-level data, the team opted for a county-level approach to maximize the reach and scale of the study.
“These are large data sets that are readily available, so this is based on diagnoses that are reported, or really government-reported diagnosis codes, and so we can dive into large data sets to see if we can find associations with improvement in these [adverse events],” he shares.
The analysis revealed a notable association: counties with higher utilization of rectal spacers during prostate cancer radiotherapy showed lower rates of ED diagnoses. While the data is observational and further research is needed to confirm causality, the findings point toward a potentially broader protective role for rectal spacers.