I did my Masters' thesis with the group that invented and developed this in Toronto. I know some of the co-authors on the paper personally since we worked together. AMA.
How much heat are we talking about? General anesthetic amount or local enough?
Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
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Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#32This commenter said it best John Otvos DECEMBER 8, 2019 06:19 AM There’s no free lunch here by treating any disease, let alone pc with some form of invasive therapy. Nerves do get damaged. Cells are set on fire and left to die. In order to reach a man’s doughnut, the treatment regime must pass through many layers of cellular tissue to ‘hit’ the target area. Our healthcare system, whether here in Canada, or stateside,…
Can we not spread these pseudoscience lies on HN? Steve Jobs died in part because he believed he could cure his pancreatic cancer with herbal remedies and diet, which you're espousing.
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#33I did my Masters' thesis with the group that invented and developed this in Toronto. I know some of the co-authors on the paper personally since we worked together. AMA.
Is there any chance that these techniques could be equally effective for other cancers? For example Liver, Kidney, Lung cancers?
My understanding is prostate cancer has a particular need for this sort of less invasive approach, as surgical procedures there tend to damage the sensitive equipment nearby - incontinence and impotence are common side effects of it, and often not worth it when prostate cancer tends not to be deadly.
Things like liver cancer you're probably better off just doing a surgery for, as you'll have more chance of getting it all, spotting metastasized offshoots, etc., and it's fairly accessible.
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#34As someone whose family member recently just received a test showing elevated PSA levels (Prostate Cancer indicator); this article is a very real blessing.
# Baseline issues with prostate cancer that suck.
1. Don't treat a benign version and possibly live with trouble urinating and follow on problems from that.
2. Don't treat a malignant version and die
3. Treat it and potentially be impotent
4. Treat it and end up with bowel dysfunction
5. Treat it and rehab through surgical scars looking like an upside down T from following from belly-button to waistline or a U shape around the rectum.
6. Of course there is some tail risk of much much worse situations; and while it's worth remembering, it's not worth enumerating.
# TULSA method
So while this method is not different - it includes things that suck... if you read further upstream of the newatlas article to RSNA primary source [1] you will find that not only do they insert a spinning ultrasound device up the urethra - but it also includes a simultaneous insertion of an endorectal cooling device(ECD)[2]. Given all that: the parts that suck about this method pale in comparison to the traditional list of 6 above.
# Conclusion
There is much to be squeamish about with this method, as with any prostate remediation methodology; but if applied under careful care of patient and doctor - this looks like a very promising prostate treatment. And as a family friend once put it to me: "Welcome to the world of cancers; where pretty much everything sucks."
[1]: https://press.rsna.org/timssnet/media/pressreleases/14_pr_ta...
[2]: https://press.rsna.org/pressrelease/2019_resources/2129/fig_...
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Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#35This is good video[0] explaining how it works. Chosen resonating waves may destroy bridges, not to mention some cell membrane. The problem is there is no money in that for big pharma & co. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w0_kazbb_U
I always approach these statements with skepticism.
Okay, let’s say that there’s no money for the big pharma, what about governments with socialized health care? What about rich people and their loved ones who suffer from cancer?
The “not much money in this” aspect seems believable only when the condition is a rare one but cancer is a huge unsolved issue for everyone, including rich people and politicians. How can they not pursue cancer treatment option that’s not profitable enough for commercial players?
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#36I did my Masters' thesis with the group that invented and developed this in Toronto. I know some of the co-authors on the paper personally since we worked together. AMA.
Off topic, but if it could shrink the prostrate (to treat BPH) with similar technology that would be awesome. And after a quick search it looks like there's some movement there: https://fusfoundation.org/diseases-and-conditions/urological... @HorizonXP, any thoughts on this and it's potential to go mainstream? Asking for a friend...
It seems that 29 centers in the US do this type of FUS treatment commercially as listed on the FUSF website.
Any focused ultrasound tech has potential to gain wide acceptance but it is mostly the imaging component (MRI guided in most cases) that hold it back due to costs and availability.
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#37I did my Masters' thesis with the group that invented and developed this in Toronto. I know some of the co-authors on the paper personally since we worked together. AMA.
Is there any chance that these techniques could be equally effective for other cancers? For example Liver, Kidney, Lung cancers?
Yes, very much so. Ultrasound in medicine is very cool technology. Obviously many of us have experience with ultrasound imaging, which has revolutionized medicine in a number of ways. But we also learned that if you crank up the amplitude and frequency, you can heat the tissue. Our research group was one of several that figured out that you can use MRI-based thermometry to measure that heating, and use it as the input to your control loop. Then, it's a matter of adjusting the frequency, amplitude, and positioning (i.e. in this case, rotation) to "paint" your heat pattern.
Thus, at least at our site, it was used to develop treatments for uterine fibroids, some types of breast cancer, and some types of brain cancer (using transcranial ultrasound, which is much harder to do because you have to go through bone and adjust for that medium). Generally, areas that you can reach from the skin and/or with a special probe, are potential treatment targets.
Lung cancers are hard to treat with ultrasound, for a few reasons. The biggest is that it moves, which makes it hell for the MRI and system as a whole to keep up without hitting unwanted areas. The other is that ultrasound doesn't travel well through air. For ultrasound ablation to work, you need a good conduction interface. That's why ultrasound technicians slather that clear gel on you when they're imaging you. It's possible to do in the lungs, just exceedingly difficult. It's unlikely that someone will commercialize something there.
The liver and kidneys won't be targeted either because the only way to reach them is by performing an incision. You might as well use other techniques like laparoscopy.
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#38This commenter said it best John Otvos DECEMBER 8, 2019 06:19 AM There’s no free lunch here by treating any disease, let alone pc with some form of invasive therapy. Nerves do get damaged. Cells are set on fire and left to die. In order to reach a man’s doughnut, the treatment regime must pass through many layers of cellular tissue to ‘hit’ the target area. Our healthcare system, whether here in Canada, or stateside,…
Can we not spread these pseudoscience lies on HN? Steve Jobs died in part because he believed he could cure his pancreatic cancer with herbal remedies and diet, which you're espousing.
Well, also because the mortality rate of pancreatic cancer is pretty damn high. And it's pretty damn fast. Source? Family. The same month as Steve.
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#39I did my Masters' thesis with the group that invented and developed this in Toronto. I know some of the co-authors on the paper personally since we worked together. AMA.
How much heat are we talking about? General anesthetic amount or local enough?
I was about to say definitely general anesthetic, but I'm not 100% sure now. The patients for prostate cancer were definitely put under. I don't know about the uterine fibroid patients though. They might have received an epidural?
It's less about the pain of the heat, and more about the discomfort of having probes in your genitals, and the requirement that you stay perfectly still.
Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we not spread these pseudoscience lies on HN? Steve Jobs died in part because he believed he could cure his pancreatic cancer with herbal remedies and diet, which you're espousing.
Well, also because the mortality rate of pancreatic cancer is pretty damn high. And it's pretty damn fast. Source? Family. The same month as Steve.
Jobs had a rare, much more readily treatable variant. There's a very good chance the delay in treatment had substantial negative impact.
https://www.webmd.com/cancer/pancreatic-cancer/news/20110825...