Medical Services • Prostate Care

Bringing the most advanced medical treatments and therapies to our community

The NCH commitment to advanced medical technology provides you with safer and more effective care. Each new breakthrough results in greater precision, less pain, quicker recovery and a lower risk of side effects.

Advanced treatments for non-cancerous and enlarged prostates

• Medication
• Stents
• Laser treatments
• Traditional and less-invasive forms of surgery

Advanced treatments for prostate cancer

• da Vinci® Surgical System – the gold standard for minimally invasive surgery. This breakthrough technology allows a surgeon to view 3-D images of the surgical field while sitting at a state-of-the-art computer console. Hand, wrists and finger movements are translated into precise robotic arm movements. This gives surgeons greater precision and the patient less pain, fewer side effects and a shorter hospital stay. We are one of the few hospitals in the area to offer this new technology.
• CyberKnife® Stereostatic Radiosurgery System (SRS) – is a non-invasive alternative to surgery. It uses an extremely accurate, computer-controlled robotic arm to target tumors with high-dose radiation. Treatment duration is shorter than traditional radiation therapies. We were the first hospital in the Chicago area to offer this groundbreaking technology.
• External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT) – one of the primary treatments for patients with localized or locally advanced prostate cancer
• Low Dose Rate (LDR) Brachytherapy – an extremely effective method for treating early-stage prostate cancers. Unlike external beam radiation, which delivers a high dose or radiation from outside the body, this technique is a low energy type of radiation therapy. Tiny radioactive devices called seeds are implanted permanently inside the tumor to kill cancer cells. This minimizes radiation exposure to healthy surrounding tissue. On average, 60 to 120 seeds, each smaller than a grain of rice, are placed in the prostate gland. The low energy isotopes used in the seeds lose their radioactivity quickly.
• High Dose Rate (HDR) Brachytherapy – placing very tiny plastic catheters into the prostate gland to deliver the radioactive seeds and then giving a series of radiation treatments through these catheters. The catheters are then easily pulled out, and no radioactive material is left in the prostate gland
• Cyrosurgery – using ultrasound technology to guide needles into the prostate, this procedure delivers extremely cold gases that kill the cancer cells.
• Clinical Trials – NCH participates in a variety of clinical trials to give our patients access to the very latest treatments from across the country.