They’re up to 41 states. The states they’ve yet to conquer are: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon and South Dakota. “I’ve had kids who come back and visit me and ask, ‘What number are you on?’’’ says Gonzalez, who has had students run the race because of her. “I guess they feel, ‘If my teacher could do it ….” They had a setback in the fall of 2016 when Blair was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He had three options: Remove the prostate through surgery, radiate it or undergo High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, a new procedure the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2015 that uses high-heat ultrasound waves to burn off the tumor. It’s an outpatient procedure that doesn’t have the side effects of the surgery or radiation — higher risk for incontinence and sexual dysfunction. The downside? It’s not fully covered by insurance or Medicare, leaving an out-of-pocket expense at between $15,000 and $20,000. Blair had the procedure done last March. Shortly thereafter, the father-daughter duo began training and race-walked three marathons in 2017 — in Connecticut, Arizona and Nebraska. Blair would not have been able to resume training so quickly if he had the surgery, said his physician, Dr. Dipen Parekh, professor and chair of the Department of Urology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Author: Paulo Martins
New Medical Technology
New Medical Technology Gives Urologists a More Precise Method to Target Diagnosed Areas of the Prostate
We asked Dr. Cary Robertson, M.D. from Duke University Medical Center three questions on the latest development of a new medical technology that gives urologists a more precise method for treating prostate cancer.
Q1: Can you start by explaining why High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is an important option for treating the prostate?
A: More often than not, men with prostate cancer are offered standard choices for treatment including active surveillance, radiation therapy or surgery.
Active surveillance is especially difficult for patients who have been told they have cancer, even if it’s contained within the prostate. Urologists will typically monitor a patient with low grade disease since this prostate cancer is slow growing and may not progress. Some patients may prefer to seek treatment, however, and not risk waiting.
If a patient is diagnosed early, with intermediate or high risk prostate cancer confined to the prostate, most urologists recommend radical surgery or radiation therapy. Radical prostatectomy involves removing the entire prostate whereas radiation therapy treats the whole gland in place, but both treatments may cause side effects, including urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction.
There is a new treatment urologists in the U.S. are beginning to use to treat selected cases of prostate cancer. It’s called High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) and it is FDA approved (October 2015) for prostate tissue ablation. HIFU bridges the gap between active surveillance and radical treatments, allowing patients to maintain their quality of life with minimal morbidity and potentially fewer side effects. This is particularly true if only a focal area of the prostate is ablated.
HIFU: a more Precise Method to Target Diagnosed Areas of the Prostate
We asked Dr. Cary Robertson, M.D. from Duke University Medical Center three questions on the latest development of a new medical technology that gives urologists a more precise method for treating prostate cancer.
Q1: Can you start by explaining why High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is an important option for treating the prostate?
A: More often than not, men with prostate cancer are offered standard choices for treatment including active surveillance, radiation therapy or surgery.
Active surveillance is especially difficult for patients who have been told they have cancer, even if it’s contained within the prostate. Urologists will typically monitor a patient with low grade disease since this prostate cancer is slow growing and may not progress. Some patients may prefer to seek treatment, however, and not risk waiting. If a patient is diagnosed early, with intermediate or high risk prostate cancer confined to the prostate, most urologists recommend radical surgery or radiation therapy. Radical prostatectomy involves removing the entire prostate whereas radiation therapy treats the whole gland in place, but both treatments may cause side effects, including urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction. There is a new treatment urologists in the U.S. are beginning to use to treat selected cases of prostate cancer. It’s called High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) and it is FDA approved (October 2015) for prostate tissue ablation. HIFU bridges the gap between active surveillance and radical treatments, allowing patients to maintain their quality of life with minimal morbidity and potentially fewer side effects. This is particularly true if only a focal area of the prostate is ablated.
Q2: How does Focal HIFU work?
A: HIFU uses a minimally-invasive probe placed in the rectum, a natural orifice. There are no incisions or needles required. It can target only a part of the prostate without damaging other surrounding structures.
These structures include neurovascular bundles that bring nerve and blood to produce an erection, and the urinary sphincter muscle, which controls the release of urine from the bladder. HIFU preserves the patient’s quality of life with diminished side effects of urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction and lower overall complication rates. It is an ambulatory procedure with a rapid recovery with less time away from work and leisure activities. Similar to a breast lumpectomy, where the surgeon removes only the part of the breast containing cancerous tissue, urologists can use Focal HIFU to target the exact location of a suspicious area within the prostate, destroy it, sparing the remainder of the gland.
