New pioneering soundwave prostate cancer treatment

[Anthea]

Mail Online

Keep your pecker up, Bill...new prostate cancer zapper won't wreck your love life! Pioneering soundwave treatment proves as effective as surgery

High-intensity focused ultrasound blasts tumours with soundwaves
Study shows its 93 per cent success rate as effective as surgery
But rate of erectile dysfunction in HIFU patients post treatment much lower
'Experimental' treatment not widely available in UK and costs £10,000

A treatment that uses sound waves to blast away prostate tumours has been proven to cure as many men of the disease as surgery that removes the gland – while causing significantly fewer side effects.

Until now the new procedure, called high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), has been considered experimental.

This has meant that the majority of British men diagnosed with the condition – who include former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman – are offered the more invasive operation called radical prostatectomy, which has a clear track record despite the risk of impotence and incontinence.

But a landmark study to be announced at the European Association of Urology annual meeting in Munich tomorrow has revealed that focal HIFU, which targets only the tumour while preserving the healthy prostate tissue around it, offers a 93 per cent recurrence-free survival rate at five years, putting it on a par with prostatectomy.

Remarkably, just one to two per cent of men in the HIFU trial experienced long-term urinary incontinence, compared to between ten and 20 per cent of men who have a surgical procedure to remove the entire prostate and the cancer inside it, or the other more traditional treatment of radiotherapy.

And just 15 per cent of the HIFU patients suffered erectile dysfunction, compared to between 30 and 60 per cent of men who had surgery.

Consultant urologist Hashim Ahmed, who led the study, explained: ‘Years ago all women with breast cancer had a mastectomy, the surgical removal of the breast.

Today it is more common to offer a lumpectomy, in which just the cancerous lump is removed, in addition to other treatments such a chemotherapy, radiotherapy or hormonal drugs.

‘This is a similarly conservative approach to prostate cancer, which is why there are fewer side effects.

‘In our study, 93 per cent of men were still free of prostate cancer after five years having had focal HIFU alone.’

Currently the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which provides guidelines for doctors, sanctions HIFU treatment on the NHS only if part of a clinical trial in specialist hospitals.

This means that while it is widely available in America, the treatment is mainly offered privately in the UK, at a cost of £10,000.

Experts hope the new study’s stunning results will pave the way for the treatment being more widely offered in Britain.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... rgery.html