Has any one tried or researched HIFU or CyberKnife for treating Prostate Cancer?

LBlanks said:

Still Under Study...
From what I've read, HIFU is still under study and is at least two years away from "standard practice".

I have a friend that underwent this procedure on an experimental basis and is doing well. Actually, it was done at no cost to him and he ever got a check from the research team doing the procedure.

mrshisname said:

HIFU gal
Hello, I have a question for you.
Do you have a background in the medical field?
Because some of the comments you make border on giving medical advice.
I'm a registered nurse, and I am very careful about even sounding like I am giving medical advice, which is illegal.
I think you should be more careful telling people they 'qualify', or other opinions on their situation. That is best left to the medical professionals.
I don't mean to offend you, because you do sound like you are trying to be helpful, but giving your opinion on a medical situation when you are not a trained professional may in fact, do more harm than good.

bdhilton said:

All I can do is smile :-)
You think so :-)?

HIFUgal said:

"bumped" means it was
"bumped" means it was brought to the top of the pile, for your reading.

No, no medical training at all. I got info on HIFU from a friend. It was a total God send for us, and so I want to pass along what I've learned. I read about it all the time, and so I have learned alot, and there are people who have had HIFU that I stay in touch with and they tell me what they learned.

Giving advice on a forum is not illegal, as there is a disclaimer at the bottom of this page, everyone knows we are just trying to help based on our experience, if I was a MD I'd certainly say so.

When I say someone is qualified - it's totally based on thier stats. BTW, I say all the time to call International HIFU and ask if you qualify, there is a doctor on Facebook who says someday surgery and radiation will be in the Smithsonian. I wish HIFU was covered by insurance here. It would be the cheapest cure, especially in the long run....based on my husband and our friends who have also had it.

HIFUgal said:

Where are the men who had
Where are the men who had HIFU? guess they don't enjoy a fight. My husband has no interest in forums, he reads books in his spare at home time, hardly even answers his friends emails, he has said that forums are notorious for rude behavior. Our friends still work, ski instructors, store owners, they tell all the people they meet about HIFU, but aren't interested in spending their time on forums. Every one of them has sent in someone....and all are happy. HIFU shouldn't be confined to a rich man's option.

When I first posted my husband's experience my post was erased and I was banned, at 5 different forums. That was well over a year ago, they didn't allow the topic, they wanted to keep this information from you. My husband was treated in 2008 but I couldn't write here until Sept. of 2009.

Yes, where are they? Men are different, they aren't care givers, or, like my husband - they do it in a different way. Besides, it seems that people with good stories don't come here, people come here to find answers to their problems, after HIFU life is normal.

If my husband read the posts you guys send my way he'd throw the computer out the window.

What is my goal? To make sure everyone (rich and poor) know about HIFU so that the FDA cannot drag its feet anymore, that they are honest and give HIFU approval ~ after all ~ no treatment is FDA approved for prostate cancer....my goal is to stop the misery.

HIFUgal said:

I don't work for anyone.
I don't work for anyone.

I wasn't banned from here, I didn't find this site until later. What are long term results with surgery? or radiation? So far HIFU stacks up better, according to results from Dr. Uchilda in Japan and Dr. Emberton in the UK.

The AMA tells insurance companies what to cover, same in Canada, there's no money in HIFU if it's approved.

Besides what I've already said, I want HIFU approved so that we can move on to killing breast cancer with HIFU, as they are doing in Europe and Asia. I want everyone to know about HIFU. then they can chose.


Jun 16, 2009 6:27 pm US/Eastern HealthWatch: Prostate Cancer Reporting
Dr. Max Gomez NEW YORK (CBS) ― British doctors are testing a new treatment that uses the power of sound to kill prostate cancer.

They're finding high-intensity focused ultrasound, or hifu, destroys cancer cells without serious side effects.

That was important to prostate cancer patient Graham Cole. "It's a very sensitive part of the anatomy, and hifu will deal with what needs to be done and only what needs to be done."

Traditional treatments like surgery and radiation can damage healthy cells in and around the prostate leading to impotence and incontinence.

"The radical treatments that we have come with a significant amount of collateral damage," said Dr. Richard Hindley of the North Hampshire Hospital in England.

Hifu uses a probe to focus ultrasound at the prostate.

High frequency sound waves reaching 212 degrees burn cancer cells. The urinary tube that runs through the prostate and nearby nerves needed for sexual function are not damaged.

British doctors have only tested this type of hifu on 18 men.

So far it's been much more effective than traditional treatments.

Now doctors in the U.S. are planning their own studies.

"In my opinion it's the future," said Dr. Thomas Polascik of Duke University Medical Center.

Researchers said accuracy was just the type of advance they need in treating prostate cancer.

Polascik said the goal would be to find and destroy cancer cells in the prostate without damaging the rest of the prostate.

Cole's procedure took two hours and he was able to go home the very next day. His doctors are satisfied his cancer is gone.

mrshisname said:

I'd have to agree with Luckyman2
Hifu gal, you continue to come up with 'facts' that are hard to substantiate, look at luckyman2's post correcting you about what you wrote regarding Canada and HIFU: erroneous information. You come across as a salesperson, pure and simple. I read in one of your posts that you are in Puerto Vallarta quite often. Why is that? I think you work for HIFU. Or you are on some kind of retainer for bringing in patients.
I have gone to pubmed (lists medical articles from all over the world) trying to find hard statistics about HIFU, with specific data regarding Gleason scores, staging of patients, treatment details, and they are few and far between. This is the primary reason that the FDA is awaiting clinical trial results in this country before approving HIFU. More controlled studies are needed. Did you read my post about the FDA? Probably not. Read the thread,it will enlighten you.
Since you are NOT a medical professional, you probably are not aware of how clinical research is conducted in this country.
I keep thinking of all the people years ago who jumped on the Laetrile bandwagon, went to Mexico and later died because they'd refused conventional treatment for cancer. There is usually a reason why drugs and treatments go thru clinical trials. Even then, some things are missed (thalidomide, Avandia). BUT there has to be some sort of process to PROTECT the public and make sure that standards of care are established and met. Think about antibiotics. Did you know that years ago the belief was that antibiotics were the cure-all for everything? Now look at the mess with bacteria that have become drug resistant due to the over-prescription of antibiotics. We have created 'super-bugs'.
We are getting ready to go see a leading prostate cancer doctor in a few weeks. I'm interested to see what his take on HIFU is.
And contrary to your belief, and I directly quote from your posting "HIFU shouldn't be confined to a rich man's option.", unfortunately, hon, right now it IS. All the carrying on and your constant posting in totally unrelated threads trying to sell it, interrupting other people's conversations about unrelated concerns, all this jockeying by you will NOT speed up the clinical trials and the approval in the US. HIFU will likely be approved eventually, and may indeed eventually become the 'gold standard', but right now, it ISN'T. And not many people have that chunk of change to plunk down as you and your 'friends' so easily did. Someone sure is making a lot of money off HIFU right now. Maybe even you. Maybe approval is just around the corner, and the HIFU clinics are in a crunch to make as much money as they can before the window of opportunity closes. It makes sense that in these difficult economic times, patient numbers are likely down and thus people are going to the internet, to forums like this, to actively sell and recruit patients. And if you aren't working for HIFU, you sure do come across like you are.
I received the book written by a urologist called "The Big Scare: The Business of Prostate Cancer". it is quite the interesting read. My husband's urologist is going to read it. And by the way, hubbie's original urologist has gone to Cancun and observed Dr. Suarez and feels HIFU is very promising. However, he agrees with my husband and I that we are interested in the actual tissue results, know if the capsule was compromised, get the final pathology for better decision making. Do you know exactly WHERE your husband's prostate cancer was? My husband feels more comfortable knowing if he is going to need followup radiation or not.
Here is what Anthony Horan, MD wrote in the book I mentioned above. He worked in the VA system for years, where he was paid a salary and thus did not any financial interest in promoting certain therapies. His credentials are impressive. "High intensity focused ultrasound, really a form of heat, has been championed in Germany and looks reasonable, so long as the adjacent nerves and external sphincter are conserved. I do not favor it because the line between cells dead and alive is jagged and indistinct compared to the frostbite line (of cryotherapy)." Just thought I'd throw that in. This guy contends that prostate cancer is overtreated in certain populations. There is much more to the book than I can write here. But did you know that they have had excellent results simply injecting the prostate with ETHANOL? Very cheap procedure. Who knows, there is research ongoing with that, and it may even replace HIFU. OK I'm done.

randy_in_indy said:

OH YES HIFU GAL...THE MISERY
Yeah...my misery...on day 60 today I just went Sking all day in MN with my son while he was snowbaoarding...6 hours of sking...Oh In MISERY...not one pain...not one leak not one issue due to my Robotic surgery...went down Black dimonds...I'm sure not as good as Erisian..who looks very much like an extreme skier in his pic....but I can hold my own...and son just 12 this month first time on a snowboard was hiting the blue slopes at the end of the day and touched the terain park.....HIFU GAL...you have too many against you here...and have been exposed for a spammer...better just face it.

Randy_in_Indy

PS Bd...you will do fine on Bald Nome...your going in four months ...I fell once the entire day and not even close to feeling any issue...didn't leak throughout the day...Life is Great!

erisian said:

FDA Approvals
The last I knew, the FDA wouldn't accept any studies or trials that weren't done in the US. Apparently, the rest of the world is too stupid to do things like that, in their view. It doesn't matter if a treatment has been in widespread use in Europe for a decade, or if it is backed by a ream of studies proving it safe and effective.

The FDA's motives are frequently suspect, and conflict of interest is common. They seem to be able to rapidly approve dangerous treatments if there is enough money behind them, while stalling promising treatments for no good reason, like the Provenge prostate cancer vaccine that they shot down at the last possible step last spring. Where is the public health interest in keeping a product off the market that could literally be saving thousands of lives per year (including mine, possibly), especially when there is no effective treatment for metastatic PCa available?

Docetaxel chemo is "standard of care" not because it cures metastatic PCa (it doesn't), but because in a single phase III trial it showed a small increase in median survival over the previous standard of care treatment. Provenge did the same, but was canned for silly, nit-picky reasons. Meanwhile, PCa patients are dying every day because of the myopic policies and bureaucratic foot-dragging of the FDA. So I certainly don't trust them to operate in MY best interests.

Just because HIFU (or any other treatment) is not FDA approved does not mean that it is not safe and effective. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions.