This is a new option for men with unifocal or unilateral disease.
(This means a single tumour inside the prostate or several tumours
but all on the same side of the prostate gland). With FOCAL HIFU
only the tumour is treated and not the whole gland. It uses a
high energy focused ultrasound beam, which is directed across
the wall of the back passage into the prostate to heat and destroy
a very precise volume of tissue. The aim of FOCAL HIFU is to
leave untreated as much of the healthy tissue as possible. It
is the equivalent treatment for men with prostate cancer which
is available for women with breast cancer – the male lumpectomy.
FOCAL HIFU could be suitable for men with low or intermediate
risk cancer, who have unifocal or unilateral disease. If following
the careful prostate mapping, your clinician is sure that the
cancer is confined to a specific area in the prostate, then they
can just treat these areas with HIFU and monitor the untreated
areas.
The good news is that this will allow you to avoid or reduce
the damage to surrounded structures such as the muscle controlling
urine flow and the nerves controlling erections whilst still
offering cancer control. This means you can have a treatment
for your prostate cancer without all of the associated side-effects
with other treatments
