Category: Focal Treatment & Laser Ablation

Before a prostate cancer patient makes a final decision to have focal laser ablation, I go over the details of MRI-guided FLA and what to expect after treatment. I remind each person that it’s important to monitor for PCa recurrence. After any focal treatment (cryo, HIFU, Focal Laser Ablation, MRgFUS, TULSA) PCa can either come back in the treatment site—called treatment failure, meaning the treatment did not destroy all the cancer at the site—or recur in a different location... keep reading

Prostate cancer patients are talking about TULSA-PRO, but they don’t mean Tulsa, Oklahoma. TULSA stands for Transurethral ULtraSound Ablation, and PRO refers to its use in the PROstate gland. It is an MRI-guided minimally invasive procedure for the treatment of prostate cancer (PCa). It works by directing ultrasound energy to ablate (destroy) prostate tissue. It keep reading

What do Italy and China have in common? At first glance, the two countries don’t appear to share much by way of geography (Europe vs. Asia), size (small vs. gigantic), or culture (Western vs. Oriental). However, according Eastant, a market research and consulting team, the two nations embrace four similar characteristics: a proud history, family keep reading

When it comes to treating prostate cancer (PCa), proof matters. There’s a legend about a Missouri Congressman at the turn of the 20th century, Willard D. Vandiver. As a member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, he gave a speech at a naval banquet in which he stated, “I come from a state that keep reading

Curiosity is, well, a curious thing. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes dubbed it “the lust of the mind.” After all, from birth onward the brain has a constant appetite to know stuff. In a New Science article, science writer Dan Jones states, “Curiosity is the driving force behind science, exploration and discovery.” It may occur as keep reading

Is there a perfect prostate cancer treatment? All of us—doctors and patients—wish it were so, but since all treatments (including focal laser ablation) have some risk, whatever small, there is a better question to ask. What is the perfect treatment for YOU? keep reading

It’s frustrating when I hear focal therapy described as experimental. There are still many naysayers among urologists and oncologists who insist that focal therapy has not yet demonstrated its merits. To address their skepticism, I turn to international expert Professor Mark Emberton of University College London. Mr. Emberton (see explanation below for why British surgeons keep reading

If were such a thing as a Olympics for radical prostatectomy (RP), you might expect to see a gold medal awarded to a center like Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute, or one earned by Patrick Walsh. Such centers and individuals demonstrated a track record for excellence in this surgery. In fact, RP is the statistical keep reading

Can you think of a time when you experienced an unexpected negative occurrence from some decision or action on your part? Hopefully it wasn’t a huge impact and was easily corrected. However, history is littered with large-scale tragedies stemming from what seemed like a good idea at the time. For example, Chairman Mao’s campaign to keep reading

I came across a July 6, 2022 commentary piece published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).[i] It raises an interesting 2-part question about focal treatment for prostate cancer (PCa): For which patients is this approach effective in controlling their PCa, and how is cancer control defined? The three authors hail from Ohio State keep reading