It's been nearly five years since Stephen Eason was diagnosed with prostate cancer. After intense radiation therapy, he thought he was cured but the cancer came back.

Eason said it looked like he was facing chemotherapy. He said he had friends who had gone through chemo and it scared the living daylights out of him.

Lucky for Eason, he was able to enroll in a study looking at a promising, new drug treatment. It's a biotoxin that's injected directly into the prostate.

Scott Coffield is a medical doctor who specializes in urology.

"The biotoxin attacks the cells and causes cell death immediately and then over a period of several hours," said Coffield.

Eason was asleep when he received 22 injections. They're so precise that nearby healthy tissues and organs aren't damaged. That guards against side effects like urinary incontinence or impotence.

"Having an agent that creates no side effects that we can identify and has potential for eradicating the disease with a simple, outpatient injection into the prostate is an exciting frontier," said Coffield.

The clinical trial continues and Eason is cancer free.

"I thought I was the luckiest son of a gun on the face of the earth that I happened to be at the right place at the right time," he said.

That study is expected to include 30 participants. If all goes well, the drug could be available in three to five years.

This year, more than 230,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Men over 50 should have an annual PSA blood test and digital rectal exam every year.