Think of prostate cancer surgery and what likely involves mind is a radical prostatectomy, an operation to remove all the prostate gland together with the seminal vesicles that produce sperm. However, men with localized prostate cancer — that’s, cancer that continues to be confined to the prostate — have one other surgical option.
Called focal therapy, this alternative procedure treats only the cancerous a part of the prostate and leaves the remaining of the gland intact. The goal is to remove “clinically significant” tumor tissue, cancer that may spread if left untreated. Although there’s a small risk that some cancer may remain after treatment, focal therapy also has the good thing about reducing the risks of erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence, each potential unwanted side effects of radical prostatectomy. And growing evidence suggests it will possibly be an efficient strategy.
Last 12 months, researchers Reported that 1,379 men treated with focal therapy or radical prostatectomy had similar cancer outcomes after five years of follow-up. The men were, on average, 66 years old, and doctors treated them with a way called high-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU. This approach destroys the cancer by subjecting it to high-energy ultrasound waves that heat the tumor to high temperatures.
now, Results The same research team suggests that focal therapy can also be an efficient option for older men with prostate cancer. In this recent study, researchers assessed the outcomes of 649 men aged 70 and over who were treated at 11 sites within the UK. Two-thirds of the lads had cancer with an intermediate risk of spreading, and the remaining third had more aggressive, high-risk prostate tumors which are more dangerous.
All the lads were treated with HIFU or a special kind of focal therapy, cryotherapy, which freezes the cancer and destroys it. The primary goal of the study was to evaluate “failure-free survival,” the speed at which men who receive treatment avoid death from prostate cancer, or the disease resulting in further interventions.
What does the information reveal?
After a follow-up period of as much as five years, 96% of the lads were still alive, and the general failure-free survival rate was 82%. No difference in outcomes was reported between HIFU- and cryotherapy-treated men. Men with high-risk cancer had worse outcomes: their failure-free survival rate was 75%, in comparison with 86% for men with intermediate-risk disease.
But 88% of high-risk men and 90% of intermediate-risk men also avoided hormonal therapy, a treatment that — due to its unwanted side effects — most men don't want. The authors concluded that focal therapy could also be a suitable treatment for prostate cancer control in older men in addition to radical prostatectomy.
It is significant to notice that complications are possible with focal therapy. For example, a small percentage of men in the brand new study developed urinary tract infections, and a few developed urinary retention, a treatable condition that happens when the bladder is totally empty. but shouldn’t be empty. The authors didn’t assess functional outcomes after surgery, comparable to erectile dysfunction or urinary incontinence. But growing evidence from other studies suggests that long-term urinary incontinence after focal therapy is rare.