Prostate cancer treatment draws fire
Published: Jan. 18, 2008 at 7:49 AM
High-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU therapy, uses isolated bursts of high-intensity sound waves that produce temperatures 80-90 degrees Celsius to attack cancerous tissues in the prostate through a rectal probe, The New York Times reported Friday.
U.S. HIFU, a company touting the treatment at international clinics, said the treatment provides an alternative to more conventional treatment without the sexual or urinary side-effects of other treatments.
The director of the U.S. HIFU, Dr. George M. Suarez, told the Times the treatment's $25,000 price tag is justified and claimed the treatment is an alternative to surgery or radiation with fewer side effects.
U.S. HIFU is sponsoring FDA-approved clinical studies to win approval for the treatment in the United States. Canadian and EU officials have approved the treatment.
Dr. Peter Scardino with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center told the Times the treatment does provide an alternative method but added that "for the treatment of the average ordinary prostate cancer, I think it's a second-class form of therapy."
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This undated NASA image shows two galaxies that are slowly colliding and possibly, in hundreds of millions of years, only one galaxy will remain. Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies will directly collide, the gas, dust and ambient magnetic fields do interact directly. These galaxies, part of the vast Hydra-Centaurus supercluster of galaxies, spans over 100 thousand light-years across and is located about 100 million light-years away. (UPI Photo/NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage)
NASA image shows galaxies that will slowly collide
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