Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

newatlas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 125 posts

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#101

Post by seandougall »

k_sze wrote: post #95
dorfsmay wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For which cancers does this procedure work (assuming your wife didn't have prostate cancer)? I understand 25 k USD feels reasonable if it saves your life without surgery and it's complications, but it steep for "just ultrasound". Do you know why it was that expensive?

> (assuming your wife didn’t have prostate cancer) I almost spewed my coffee. At McDonald’s. Thanks for making me get weird looks from other people. XD

Just a friendly reminder that many trans women and some intersex women do indeed have prostates. So although it’s a safe bet statistically that the commenter was not referring to prostate cancer, it’s not a particularly absurd hypothetical.

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#102

Post by k_sze »

seandougall wrote: post #101
k_sze wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (assuming your wife didn’t have prostate cancer) I almost spewed my coffee. At McDonald’s. Thanks for making me get weird looks from other people. XD

Just a friendly reminder that many trans women and some intersex women do indeed have prostates. So although it’s a safe bet statistically that the commenter was not referring to prostate cancer, it’s not a particularly absurd hypothetical.

Some trans women have prostates? TIL. I honestly didn't know.

But you're right that I completely forgot about the intersex group.

In fact, I initially wondered if homosexual couples (of either sex) could refer to their SO as "wife", but then the comments also use "she", so I kinda dismissed the possibility of a biologically male "wife".

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#103

Post by stevenjohns »

pstuart wrote: post #58
always_swapping wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks, I skimmed too quickly :-). Time to do further research, you know, for a friend.

Finasteride (and other DHT inhibitors) is an option also worth looking into.

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#104

Post by jonstewart »

pmiller2 wrote: post #83
mooreed wrote: post #34

As 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 w…

If elevated PSA is the only real sign of cancer, then, depending on his age, it's entirely possible your family member could die _with_ prostate cancer rather than _of_ prostate cancer. According to https://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/prostate-cancer-surviv... , 2/3 of "very elderly" men who died of things other than prostate cancer had undiagnosed prostate cancer on autopsy. And, if the cancer is localized, the 5…

My dad got a regular PSA test from his old doctor. But that doctor retired, he got a new doctor, moved, got a new doctor again, and the guidance changed, recommending against annual PSA tests. Then my dad developed some back pain. Took it easy, went to the doc, did physical therapy, etc., but it just got worse. Turns out, he had (has) stage IV prostate cancer, with several tumors along his spine and was on the precipice of MSSC before he received a correct diagnosis at age 66. His PSA was north of 80.

The good news is that treatment has shrunk the tumors dramatically and he's mostly back to normal. The bad news is that he still has stage IV prostate cancer. It'd have been great to have had it caught earlier.

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#105

Post by [deleted] »

aantix wrote: post #81
Dolores12 wrote: post #15

This 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

>The problem is there is no money in that for big pharma I wish there was a chrome extension that could detect such cliches on discussion platforms and automatically hide the entire thread.

[deleted]

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#106

Post by remotecool »

k_sze wrote: post #102
seandougall wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a friendly reminder that many trans women and some intersex women do indeed have prostates. So although it’s a safe bet statistically that the commenter was not referring to prostate cancer, it’s not a particularly absurd hypothetical.

Some trans women have prostates? TIL. I honestly didn't know. But you're right that I completely forgot about the intersex group. In fact, I initially wondered if homosexual couples (of either sex) could refer to their SO as "wife", but then the comments also use "she", so I kinda dismissed the possibility of a biologically male "wife".

Yes, some trans women have prostates. In 2019, even if you have a penis and balls, you can identify as a woman for the day and be considered 'trans'.

I'm glad people are starting to respect pronouns, so I can be called by my proper pronoun: "gigantic cock".

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#107

Post by hnick »

chollida1 wrote: post #50
hristov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, your family member is probably aware of this but there is another ultrasound treatment option for prostate cancer that is completely non-invasive. It is called hifu. https://www.hifu-prostate.com/ Hifu sends ultrasound from a curved emitter from outside the body in such a manner that the ultrasound ray will be focused on the treatment area. Thus, while you have ultrasound going through your body, only in…

Can confirm and sing the praises of HiFu. Went to China so my spouse could have a procedure done in 2014. HiFu took 1-2 hours and my wife walked away from the procedure. She was hiking the next day. Tumor was shrinking almost immediately. The alternatives we had were surgery that would have removed part of her abs or weekly treatments of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamoxifen Neither of which was great. Now we had t…

I assume the sound waves overlap and increase in amplitude, destroying the tumor cells.

But I'm wondering why a shrinking tumor is enough - usually we cut the whole thing out so that it doesn't metastasise or regrow from small leftover parts. If the beam kills most of it, is that enough? Does it trigger a mass die-off or stimulate our immune system to do the rest of the job? Just wondering what the explanation here is.

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#108

Post by hnick »

HorizonXP wrote: post #37
radicalbyte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inpu…

What benefits does using sound have over using targeted electromagnetic radiation to induce localised heating? Since I assume that is possible too, perhaps I'm wrong there.

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#109

Post by [deleted] »

cxxgvcx wrote: post #72
HorizonXP wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inpu…

For a lung cancer patient could you: Put them in a coma Lower their T to significantly decrease the matabolism Fill their lungs with a liquid air solution (it’s a perfluorinate liquid that absorbs lots of O2. It works, but sucks) Since CO2 isn’t soluble in fluorinated liquids. Intravenously remove the CO2 (hard, but you’ve lowered the metabolism rate) Slowly circulate the fluid Starts blasting away at the tumors.

[deleted]

Re: Ultrasound destroys 80 percent of prostate cancers in one-year study

#110

Post by Johnny555 »

killjoywashere wrote: post #98
comfrey11 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan an you can get an MRI for $160 US I hear

Do you get the radiologist's read for $160? Do they put an ablative ultrasound probe in you and hold it for an hour for $160?

What's the purpose of an ablative ultrasound probe in an MRI? An MRI uses high intensity magnetic fields, not ultrasound.
Post reply on HN