Hi Gerard,
If you are seriously considering HIFU, preferring it to other possible options, you need to go to a place where there is a specialist for it to ascertain whether you are a suitable patient. They will do a high quality scan and you will not be eligible if any cancer is observed to be outside the Prostate, in a part that cannot be reached or there is too much cancer for this type of treatment or too widely distrubuted. Before the HIFU you will also have to pass varios other pre op tests. To get pretty comperable results with surgery or radiation treatment you may well need the HIFU to be repeated as was the case with me. I had it for failed RT, the last HIFU being done in Dec 2021. (My PSA when recently tested was 0.04, nothing untoward was seen in my last MRI and I was told that I am in remission).
I had my HIFU within a trial at UCLH in London and I beleve they now do the procedure outside a trial on the NHS. They have the most experience of the procedure in the UK and instruct others.how to perform it. They also specialize in Cryotherapy and Nanoknife, the latter being a name for Irreversable Electroporation, being other forms of Focal Therapy. I believe there are centres that do HIFU in Bristol, Southampton, Guildford and a few other places with more looking to adopt the procedure.but not difficult to get a train to Paddington and bus or taxi to UCLH and go to the most experienced.
Lizzo is right that there is not much long term data on HIFU compared with Surgery or Radiation but clinical trials started in France in 1993 using the French Ablatherm for Prostate Cancer and it was awarded the CE mark of approval in 1999 so medium term results are known. Of course techniques have improved over time as has the equipment and one area of great benefit has been the precision afforded in recent years by the higher quality scans available. HIFU generally enables a very fast recovery with minimal side effects but if it is not able to eradicate the cancer a Prostatectomy can follow or radiation be given. However, it can made these follow up treatments more diddicult if necesssary. You have to bear in mind that all forms of treatment have their share of failurers and potential side effects.
There is debate about how effective changing diet can be on slowing down the progress of PCa and there have been posts about this on the forum. Unfortunately, once diagnosed, a changed diet is not going to cure PCa.
Barry |
User
Only if you were offered Active Surveillance as a choice by your consultant. That will depend on the position of the tumour(s), and the amount of Gleason 4 found.