Prostate ultrasound may reduce side effects

A new technique to treat early prostate cancer that may have far fewer side effects than existing therapies has been given a cautious welcome by the Irish Cancer Society.

The ICS was commenting on a study which has suggested that targeted ultrasound treatment could reduce the risk of impotence and incontinence.

Standard therapy involves treating the whole prostate gland, either with radiotherapy or surgery to remove it completely.

The British study used an experimental treatment known as high-intensity focused ultrasound to treat areas of cancer that are only a few millimetres in size, a technique known as focal therapy.

Doctors at University College Hospital, London, who conducted the 41-patient study, said the results were encouraging.

One year after treatment none of the patients in the trial had incontinence and just one in 10 suffered from poor erections — both common symptoms of conventional treatment.

Most (95%) were also cancer free after a year.

Dr Hashim Ahmed, who led the study, said men might soon be able to undergo a day case surgical procedure that can be safely repeated once or twice, to treat their condition with very few side effects.

Head of research at the ICS, John Fitzpatrick, who gave a cautious welcome to the study, said that larger scale trials in multiple institutions would have to be carried out.

“The good thing about it is that it is a treatment where the complication rate is extremely low,” he said.

However, he said the study group was very small as was the test timeframe for a slow growing cancer.

“This study is coming from a single institution with mainly low risk prostate cancer observed for a relatively short time,” he said.

He also pointed out that almost three-quarters of the sample were low risk prostate cancer.

“A lot of prostate screening studies have shown that we tend to over treat prostate cancer and many men with low rate prostate cancer may not need to be treated at all.

* The study was published in the latest issue of the medical journal, Lancet Oncology.

Killer cancer

* Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after skin cancer.

* Each year around 2,500 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed.

* About one in 12 Irishmen will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.

* There are over 500 deaths from prostate cancer in Ireland annually.

* National Cancer helpline: 1800 200 700.