When 60-year-old Keith Eades was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he wasn’t satisfied with the option of surgery recommended by his physician. After much research, he chose proton therapy, a type of targeted radiation treatment that allowed him to continue his active lifestyle and experience limited side effects from treatment.
“There have been zero, I mean zero side effects from proton therapy,” said Eades. “I may be the person most in love with proton therapy in the world.”
Eades is the founder and CEO of Sales Performance International, a leading sales training and sales force effectiveness consulting firm based in Charlotte, N.C.. SPI is currently doing business in more than 54 countries around the world. Clients include IBM, Motorola, Pitney Bowes, Comcast, Exxon and Merck. Eades has authored the books The New Solution Selling, The Solution Selling Field Book and The Solution Centric Organization.
Eades began researching options for treatment of his prostate cancer after regular screenings showed his PSA levels rising. Follow-up tests and a biopsy revealed cancer had invaded his prostate and along nerve fiber within the prostate indicating a higher chance that the cancer has spread beyond the prostate. With surgery, the nerves around the prostate could not have been spared, Eades said, and side effects would also have included impotence and incontinence.
Eades learned of proton therapy after reaching out to a number of friends who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. After doing his own research online, Eades made appointments with several proton therapy centers across the country. He selected Provision Center for Proton Therapy because of its pencil beam scanning, a state-of-the art application technology in which a proton beam spot is moved by magnetic scanning while the beam intensity is adapted to allow protons to be layered in the customized shape of the tumor. During his initial consultation at Provision, Eades was also compelled by the fact that Provision, through its ProNova Solutions division, was developing proton therapy machines for the future.
“Not only is Provision treating patients with proton therapy, it is developing and building the next generation technology,” Eades said. “It’s like going to the source. That really meant a lot to me.”
Eades continues to travel to Knoxville for regular post-treatment visits and said he continues to feel no side effects from proton therapy. He also underwent hormone deprivation therapy at the advice of his Provision physicians. This therapy was administered at the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte.
“I can’t imagine doing anything else but proton therapy,” he said.