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

newatlas.com

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

#41

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 & co.

This doesn't stop things like surgery from being highly profitable. Pharmaceuticals are hardly the only way to make money in medicine.

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

#42

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.

Is there any chance that these techniques could be equally effective for other cancers? For example Liver, Kidney, Lung cancers?

A similar treatment is available for uterine fibroids (benign smooth muscle tumors, which affect many to most women by age 50):

https://www.uclahealth.org/fibroids/mr-guided-focused-ultras...

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

#43

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…

Would transcranial ultrasound have the problem of unwanted hotspots because of reflections and a focusing effect of the curvature of the skull? I would assume that this could only be done by scanning the head with a MRI, modelling the tissues in detail, simulating the process and then constructing a wave front from many emitters that does what one wants. Ideally all of that in real time as I guess the heating process will change the properties of the treated tissue in a way that would require it.

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

#46

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.

AMA. Thanks. I'm always wary of reading too much into articles about promising medical developments, because it seems like often the headlines look great but they are actually referring to some relatively early stage of trials, so results of later trials might not be so good or even if they are it might still be a long time before the treatment is used routinely. However, in this case, the article reads as if this is…

I just read the abstract, and I'd say we should be very excited about this result.

When I left my Masters in 2012, the clinical trials being done still resulted in a prostatetectomy. Meaning, these generous men donated their time to allow us to use them as guinea pigs, yet received no benefit since their prostates were removed anyway. That did allow us to perform in-depth pathology reports about the efficacy of the treatment.

This paper has 115 men that were treated and allowed to not have the surgery done, so this is the first time that we were able to see what the outcomes of the treatment truly are. Based on the results in the abstract, it looks like the hypothesis that men would be "cured" and have a better quality of life (i.e. no incontinence or sexual dysfunction) seems to be well-supported.

More of these trials will need to occur before it becomes approved as a viable alternative to surgery. The big benefit though is that even if the the treatment fails to kill all of the cancer, it probably kills enough of it that you can go back to a watchful waiting approach, keep monitoring PSA levels and symptoms, and if anything was missed, follow up with full surgery. That is, surgery can become the last-ditch approach vs. being the only approach.

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

#47

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.

@HorizonXP first thank you for your willingness to answer questions.

1) Any idea on where to look to find out when this might become available? Looks like it was just cleared by FDA with 510(k) clearance.

2) My guess is that if you want this done - you would have to travel to UCLA? and Dr. Raman (or colleague) would perform the operation?

3) Is there anywhere to find a real discussion of down side risks with actual rates and figures?

For example, the RSNA article has a statement:

>"There were low rates of severe toxicity and no bowel complications."

4a) What does `severe toxicity` entail? 4b) Is that a operational complication that is remedied at the hospital and overcome in the short-term? or is that a long term quality of life issue?

5a) Furthermore what is this actual "low" rate? is it 2/115 or is more like 10/115? It looks like the base rate for these is perhaps around 3%-7% is how would I compare this study of 115 to something published like: [1]

Similarly RSNA states:

> "We saw very good results in the patients, with a dramatic reduction of over 90 percent in prostate volume and low rates of impotence with almost no incontinence" --Dr. Raman said.

5b) Where could I look to find the actual rates of each of these negative side effects? 5c) Or would you guess they are not published?

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900775/

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

#48
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…

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 the treatment area does it become high intensity enough to actually destroy tissue. This way they can burn off cancerous parts without damaging other parts of the prostate and the rest of the sensitive parts around there.

I am not sure why the new atlas did not mention HIFU, it also uses MRI.

HIFU is already cleared by the FDA, and it will become approved by medicare very soon (this coming January, I believe), so it will be paid by medicare and probably most insurance plans (as they tend to follow medicare).

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

#49
post #48
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…

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…

@hristov I am incredibly moved by your wonderfully thoughtful reply; we are just getting up to speed so had not heard about this at all. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for sending this.

Merry Christmas!

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

#50
post #48
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…

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 to pay for the HiFu but it was soooo worth it. I think it was about $25,000 USD so very reasonable and affordable for us.

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