Category: Focal Treatment & Laser Ablation

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

The respected journal Lancet Oncology has published the study results of focal therapy for intermediate risk PCa patients, as performed with MRI-guided focused ultrasound. The Sperling Prostate Center is proud to have been one of the study sites. keep reading

When you were growing up, your mom or dad no doubt cautioned you against poking anything into an electrical outlet. You didn’t need to understand the concept of conductance; you simply had to grasp that a painful thing called a shock would be the result. Depending on how dramatic the message was, you might have keep reading

No doubt you’ve heard it before, and for sure you’ll hear it again. Radical prostatectomy (RP) is the “gold standard” of prostate cancer (PCa) treatment. Sounds impressive, right? When most people hear that phrase, they assume it means the best. However, a standard simply means a baseline against which other things in the same category keep reading

One of the ongoing themes in my blogs is the importance of matching a patient’s prostate cancer with the treatment for which he is best qualified. The lower the risk, the more treatment options will be open, possibly including focal therapy. However, “bulky” intermediate-to-high risk prostate cancer excludes focal treatment because it requires a more aggressive approach... keep reading

I am frequently asked by patients how Focal Laser Ablation (FLA) compares to Radical Prostatectomy (RP) in terms of cancer control. After all, many of the men with localized prostate cancer (PCa) who come to Sperling Prostate Center have already been told by a urologist that they qualify for a nerve-sparing robotic RP that will keep reading

PLEASE NOTE: Recruitment for the trial mentioned in this article has closed and the trial has concluded.   The energies that make up Magnetic Resonance Imaging are basically a magnetic field and radio waves. In their natural form, neither can be seen by the human eye. Likewise, sonic energy or sound waves are also invisible keep reading

It has been suggested that in multifocal prostate cancer (PCa), focal therapy to the largest (index) lesion is sufficient, because secondary non-index lesions are unlikely to contribute to disease progression.[i] In the world of urology, the belief that prostate cancer (PCa) is a multifocal disease has long dominated diagnosis and treatment decisions. Thus, treating PCa keep reading

In today’s medical fields, lasers are used therapeutically to treat a broad spectrum of disease as well as cosmetic conditions. As summarized by the Johns Hopkins website, lasers are now commonly used to debulk or destroy tumors, to seal blood vessels to diminish blood loss, in some eye surgeries and dental procedures, and to treat skin imperfections or lesions. Clinical use of lasers takes advantage of tissues’ light absorption... keep reading

Wouldn’t it be great if a patient with metastatic cancer could simply have the primary tumor treated—then all the others would miraculously start to disappear? Well, we don’t yet have the such clinical wizardry, but it looks the body itself has such a capacity! It’s called the abscopal effect (pronounced ab-SCOPE-ul). Studies are now revealing keep reading