Introduction
toxicity, prostate cancer, prostate
PROSTATE CANCER, PROSTATE
Rectal side effects are common after prostate cancer (PC) radiotherapy (RT). Higher radiation dose to the prostate can improve biochemical outcome, but dose escalation significantly increases the risk of treatment toxicity [To reduce the rectal dose, a spacer can be inserted between the prostate and the anterior rectal wall to separate the rectum from the prostate. The first study using hyaluronic acid (HA) as a perirectal spacer by Prada et al. [HA is a polysaccharide found in human tissues as a component of the connective tissue and previous studies have reported data on HA when used as a spacer in prostate RT [In this study, we present the impact of a HA perirectal spacer on rectal dose as well as spacer stability during RT with a five-year follow-up of patient-reported outcome (PRO) and gastrointestinal (GI)/genitourinary (GU) toxicity in conventionally fractionated definitive RT in prostate cancer.