Nanoknife

Hi,

Nanoknife under general anesthesia sticks 4-5 probes inside your Prostate then kills the cancer with electric current. Sounds kinda like a deep biopsy. Recover is a few days in the hospital. Another source which I have included below said you can go home the same day. If it was me I think for less invasiveness I would go with something like proven Cyberknife or Proton radiation which does not use any type of physical invasion into the prostate and requires no overnight hospital stay. You need to do whats best for you to get the best results. Your course of treatment should also take into account your age, other medical conditions, and your Gleason score(cancer aggressiveness). If your Gleason score is 3+3 with low volume, active surveillance might be a good solution. I have included a link about Nanoknife for you to study.

https://www.rush.edu/news/new-treatment-prostate-cancer-patients

Dave 3+4

I just had FLA with the Prostate Center in Houston. I'm 4+3 and was a candidate. Catheter for 3 days then flew home. Played golf today and feel great. Dr K was the person that conducted the ablation. It's worth a look.

Hey Mcesario,

I would recommend highly that you call the Prostate Laser Center in Houston and talk to Dr K. He is a compassionate, thoughtful and humble Dr that will at least give you the up and downs of FLA. Read his bio and patient testimonials on You Tube. I am eternally grateful to him and his staff the way my wife and I were treated. The way medicine should be!

I would be VERY reluctant to go this route (Nanoknife) because there are few papers with long(er) term outcomes. In fact, there is an ongoing clinical trial that is addressing this very important issue, but it's in the UK.

Study Record | ClinicalTrials.gov

More importantly, there are several therapeutic options available for prostate cancer such as yours (confined to the prostate). These include 'classical' radiation (IMRT), brachytherapy and Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT).

PS: You appear to live in Canada and considering the Canadian medical system I am surprised that Nanoknife would be approved. Yes, I am speculating here.

Would this urologist do this treatment himself? If so, a conflict of interest.

You mentioned in the first post that Nanoknife is less invasive than other focal treatments. That may be true, but radiotherapy (like SBRT and EBRT) is considered non-invasive.

Perhaps more importantly, I would really get a second opinion to see what is best for you. I could be wrong, but I doubt that you will get enthusiastic support for the proposed Nanoknife procedure.

Mcesario,

At the end of the day it's your decision. I felt like that when I walked into FLA. I did the research and work to make a decision that when I walked into that room I would have no regrets. To this day 5 weeks later I'm comfortable with my choice of treatment and facility. God bless you and the world of luck! Keep us informed.

I’m also interested in how the Nanoknife worked out. Done extensive reading on it, and understand the benefits. Big ones:

• it doesn't disrupt the cells by freezing or burning them, creating a bunch of immediate inflammation. It almost just tells them to die by opening up those micropores and setting up their eventual death
• Surprisingly sharp boundaries on the treatment zones.
• Since it doesn't involve heat, it is not messed up by large heat sinks like the ureter or large blood vessels, which distort the local heat profile.
• The vessels have collagen materials in them that survive the eletroporesis event, keeping the vessels intact
• This tends to preserve continence and prevent ED. All the papers I read had great results regarding continence particularly

Hope you're doing well, @Mcesario !

Very nice.

Will they give you another MRI or a PSMA PET to see if they zapped it all?

They are doing it at Fox Chase in Philadelphia, which is a Cancer Center of Excellence. Participating in a trial for it too. That's why it caught my eye.