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Prostate Cancer Research: High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU)One treatment being studied that kills cancer cells with heat is high-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU. The sound waves produced by HIFU are 10,000 times stronger than regular ultrasound and are aimed at the prostate and its cancer, and the intense heat destroys the prostate. The following information was compiled from previously published study results and news stories. This page was last updated on 07.01.2008 Despite Doubts, Cancer Therapy Draws PatientsSome weekends, more than a dozen American men wait at beachfront hotels, anxious for their turns in the treatment room at a small private hospital here. They are medical tourists with prostate cancer. And they are queued up for the latest therapy - one advertised with pictures of couples strolling on the beach and pitched as a way to treat the patients' disease while preserving their sex lives. The treatment is called high-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU (pronounced HIGH-foo). And instead of using surgery or radiation, it attacks the cancerous tissue by heating the prostate to temperatures near boiling. Despite Doubts, Cancer Therapy Draws Patientsby Stephanie Saul | The New York Times | 01.18.2008 Sound Waves Take Aim at Prostate CancerHigh Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) now Available at Center in Argentina USHIFU, LLC, the exclusive distributor of the Sonablate(R) 500 in North, Central and South America, announced the opening of the Argentina HIFU, the newest clinic to offer high intensity focused ultrasound for prostate cancer in Buenos Aires this month. HIFU utilizes focused sound waves to rapidly heat and destroy the tissue within the prostate. The Sonablate(R) 500, the HIFU device, utilizes a transrectal probe to deliver ultrasound energy directly to the prostate without causing damage to areas outside the gland. Sound Waves Take Aim at Prostate Cancer |  | ||||||||||||||||||||
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