The latest procedure is called High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU). It utilizes sound waves to heat up the cancer
cells and eventually destroy them.
HIFU has fewer side-effects
Researchers from the University College and Princess Grace hospitals in London applied this technique on 172 men, who showed positive results with very little or no side effects. They were discharged after almost five hours of receiving the treatment, the British Journal of Cancer reported.
Of the group of 172, a follow-up of 159 men was done and after an year it was found that 92 percent of them did not have a reappearance of prostate cancer.
Only one man complained of incontinence and almost one-third of the group had impotence, but none of them suffered from any bowel problems.
One of the volunteers, Guy MacPherson, 73, from Oxfordshire, who was a part of the trial, gave a thumbs-up to the treatment. He said, “I was very happy about the treatment. I had no side effects.”
“This study suggests it’s possible that HIFU may one day play a role in treating men with early prostate cancer with fewer side effects,” said Dr Hashim Ahmed, who led the trial.
Prostate cancer claims 10,000 lives every year in the UK alone. Mostly men suffering from a severe form of prostate cancer are treated with surgery or radiotherapy.
HIFU better than surgery or radiotherapy
If a person undergoes surgery, he has to spend around three days in the hospital. On the other hand, if radiotherapy is done, the patient has to undergo treatment daily for a period of one month. Both the methods have been found to have equal success rates.
But with HIFU, a person does not have to spend so much of time in the hospital.
One of the major advantages of HIFU is that it can aim at a specific cancerous tissue down up to the accuracy of one millimetre. It boils the cancer cells till they are dead.
As of now, 800 more men around the UK have consented to be a part of the trials. But no results have been made public till now.
Systematic evaluation needed
However, experts do believe that a thorough study was needed to confirm the reliability of sound wave therapy.
Currently, the sound wave technique is being tested on other types of cancers too, such as that of the liver and kidney. The therapy is presently being used in some parts of Europe and Japan.
But experts still want a systematic evaluation of the whole process before backing it up fully. Professor Peter Johnson from the Cancer Research UK was quoted as saying that HIFU needed “careful evaluation”.
Chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Charity, John Neate, added that a durable data was necessary. He said, “HIFU potentially offers a ‘third way’ approach to the treatment of localised prostate cancer.”
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