"Male Lumpectomy" for Prostate Cancer
"Male Lumpectomy" for Prostate Cancer
Cryotherapy Freezes Out Tumors, Leaves Rest of Prostate
March 10, 2009 -- "Male lumpectomy" -- cryotherapy that freezes tumors but leaves the rest of the prostate intact -- may be the best treatment choice for many men with early prostate cancer.
The suggestion comes in a presentation to this week's meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology by Gary M. Onik, MD, director of the Center for Safer Prostate Cancer Therapy and professor of radiology at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.
It's not exactly a new technique. Onik has been exploring its use for more than a decade in men whose prostate cancer has not spread beyond the prostate gland. Now he's collected data on 120 men with prostate cancer who underwent the procedure up to 12 years earlier.
"We've reached a tipping point," Onik says in a news release. "Treating only the tumor instead of the whole prostate gland is a major and profound departure from the current thinking about prostate cancer."
In this way, the technique is similar to lumpectomy for breast cancer. Doctors at first scoffed at the idea that anything short of total mastectomy would be an appropriate cancer treatment. But with careful patient selection and better tumor mapping, lumpectomy has become the treatment of choice for many women with breast cancer.
"I think it is time for men to consider this," Peter Nieh, MD, director of Emory University's Uro-Oncology Center. Nieh reviewed the Onik study for WebMD but was not involved in the study.
Nieh says the idea of leaving prostate tissue behind is so different from standard treatment that it seems "crazy" at first. But it makes sense, he says, when one considers that there are very few cancers in which the entire organ is removed.
"The technique is still not mainstream. You'll hear the criticism that it's not appropriate for all patients," Nieh says. "But when you see how many patients get radical prostate surgery, and multiply that by the 40% who would never die of prostate cancer, that is a lot of patients getting over-treated for what they have."
Onik's data are compelling. Of the 120 patients, 93% are cancer-free an average of 3.6 years after treatment.
'Male Lumpectomy' for Prostate Cancer
Cryotherapy Freezes Out Tumors, Leaves Rest of Prostate
March 10, 2009 -- "Male lumpectomy" -- cryotherapy that freezes tumors but leaves the rest of the prostate intact -- may be the best treatment choice for many men with early prostate cancer.
The suggestion comes in a presentation to this week's meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology by Gary M. Onik, MD, director of the Center for Safer Prostate Cancer Therapy and professor of radiology at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.
It's not exactly a new technique. Onik has been exploring its use for more than a decade in men whose prostate cancer has not spread beyond the prostate gland. Now he's collected data on 120 men with prostate cancer who underwent the procedure up to 12 years earlier.
"We've reached a tipping point," Onik says in a news release. "Treating only the tumor instead of the whole prostate gland is a major and profound departure from the current thinking about prostate cancer."
In this way, the technique is similar to lumpectomy for breast cancer. Doctors at first scoffed at the idea that anything short of total mastectomy would be an appropriate cancer treatment. But with careful patient selection and better tumor mapping, lumpectomy has become the treatment of choice for many women with breast cancer.
"I think it is time for men to consider this," Peter Nieh, MD, director of Emory University's Uro-Oncology Center. Nieh reviewed the Onik study for WebMD but was not involved in the study.
Nieh says the idea of leaving prostate tissue behind is so different from standard treatment that it seems "crazy" at first. But it makes sense, he says, when one considers that there are very few cancers in which the entire organ is removed.
"The technique is still not mainstream. You'll hear the criticism that it's not appropriate for all patients," Nieh says. "But when you see how many patients get radical prostate surgery, and multiply that by the 40% who would never die of prostate cancer, that is a lot of patients getting over-treated for what they have."
Onik's data are compelling. Of the 120 patients, 93% are cancer-free an average of 3.6 years after treatment.
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