I would like to try and enlist help from all who read this. My best friend was diagnosed last week with Prostate Cancer. All six biopsies of the gland came back positive but he is still in the "Stage Analysis" phase. I will know more by next week.
The purpose of this post is to address this forum for an evaluation of this issue as the procedures that are available are vast and getting larger. The quality of the healthcare practitioners also varies widely and I would like informed opinions and experiences to share with him.
I would also ask that analysis of the newest techniques be encouraged. In particular this example caught my attention. I have been researching the options of a new treatment being developed in Japan ( http://aolsvc.health...0000_0000_f1_04 ) that uses focused Ultrasonic beams to lyse the malignant cells has caught my attention.
The idea of using non-nuclear wave radiation and diffraction to selectively attack cells that they are specifically tuned to makes a lot of sense. It also offers hope in many other areas of cancer and disease treatment. It is an offshoot of lithotripsy and I see potential from this fall out in other ways as we are able to focus field effects from Magnetic Resonance, holographic microwave diffraction and a combination of these and other field generating methods. The key seems to be being able to select exactly where the highest energy emanations are as well as to fine tune the character of the non nuclear radiation to kill one type of tissue and not adjacent organ tissues necessary for life support.
Here is the article from the above link for those that can't retrieve it from AOL:
Ultrasound Zaps Prostate Cancer
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Dr. Gary Vogin
March 26, 2002 -- Men with prostate cancer may soon have a new, less invasive treatment option that promises fewer side effects. Japanese researchers are reporting 100% success in early tests of a high-intensity focused ultrasound treatment that zaps localized tumors.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. and the most common cancer among men. Although surgical treatment for prostate cancer (radical prostatectomy) can be successful, the surgery can be risky for some. Another conventional cancer treatment option, radiation therapy, can also cause significant side effects such as erectile dysfunction and incontinence.
Those problems have prompted a recent surge in the development of alternative treatments to treat early-stage prostate cancers. But many of these less-invasive procedures don't always completely eliminate the cancer, and some treatments can't be repeated if the cancer comes back.
In a study published in the journal Urology, Japanese researchers tested a new method that uses high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to deliver intense sound energy to destroy the tumor without damaging the surrounding tissue. Twenty patients with prostate cancer that had not spread beyond the prostate gland received the HIFU treatment either once or twice.
After six months, all 20 patients were cancer-free and had no elevations of PSA (prostate-specific antigen, a substance in the blood that doctors use to monitor prostate cancer). Side effects included difficulty urinating in the first two months after treatment, but the symptoms were easily treatable with medications.
In addition, three of the 10 patients developed erectile dysfunction after HIFU treatment.
In an editorial accompanying the study, John M. Fitzpatrick, MCh, FRCSI, FEBU, of Mater Misericordiae Hospital and University College in Dublin, Ireland, says much more research is needed before HIFU can be used as a safe alternative to traditional therapies. He says the study has only shown that HIFU was effective in eliminating the cancer in the short term, and the frequency of side effects was still relatively high.
© 2002 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
Lazarus Long