Interventional procedure overview of biodegradable spacer insertion to reduce rectal toxicity during radiotherapy for prostate cancer
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The evidence assessed
Rapid review of literature
The medical literature was searched to identify studies and reviews relevant to biodegradable spacer insertion to reduce rectal toxicity during radiotherapy for prostate cancer. The following databases were searched, covering the period from their start to 15.07.2021: MEDLINE, PREMEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and other databases. Trial registries and the Internet were also searched. No language restriction was applied to the searches (see the literature search strategy). Relevant published studies identified during consultation or resolution that are published after this date may also be considered for inclusion.
The inclusion criteria were applied to the abstracts identified by the literature search. Where selection criteria could not be determined from the abstracts the full paper was retrieved.
Characteristic | Criteria |
|---|---|
Publication type | Clinical studies were included. Emphasis was placed on identifying good quality studies. Abstracts were excluded where no clinical outcomes were reported, or where the paper was a review, editorial, or a laboratory or animal study. Conference abstracts were also excluded because of the difficulty of appraising study methodology, unless they reported specific adverse events that were not available in the published literature. |
Patient | Patients with prostate cancer. |
Intervention/test | Insertion of biodegradable spacer for prostate-rectum separation during radiotherapy. |
Outcome | Articles were retrieved if the abstract contained information relevant to the safety and/or efficacy. |
Language | Non-English-language articles were excluded unless they were thought to add substantively to the English-language evidence base. |
List of studies included in the IP overview
This IP overview is based on 7,670 patients from 1 RCT, 1 meta-analysis, 1 HTA, 4 systematic reviews and 2 reviews. There is likely to be an overlap of primary studies between systematic reviews 2 to 7 and data between study 8 and 9.
Other studies that were considered to be relevant to the procedure but were not included in the main summary of the key evidence are listed in the appendix.
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