Overview
- At ESTRO 2026, researchers reported that delivering the full prostate radiotherapy dose in two outpatient sessions produced no extra side effects compared with the standard five-session course.
- The randomized HERMES trial enrolled 46 men, with 24 receiving five sessions over two weeks and 22 receiving two sessions over eight days using an MRI-guided radiotherapy system.
- About one in four patients in each group had moderate urinary symptoms, no severe urinary or bowel toxicity was seen, and no patients in the two-session arm reported bowel side effects.
- Patient-reported results at two years showed little change in quality of life and minimal or no difference between the two- and five-session groups.
- Experts said the approach could cut travel and time in care and may ease costs for clinics, though the MRI-guided equipment is still limited to specialist centers and broader adoption awaits larger, longer follow-up studies.