As you approach fifty, the word sounds like a warning shot. Prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women: an invader that kills 8,000 people every year in France.
Of the 58,000 cases per year, 80% receive local treatment, 10% are actively monitored and the remainder undergo aggressive surgery. This last solution often causes urinary incontinence and significantly reduces erectile capacity.
But, to limit these post-operative effects, another way seems to emerge. It was presented in a study published in theEuropean Urology, with the support of the French Association of Urology (Afu). The treatment consists of concentrating high-intensity ultrasound via an endorectal probe to destroy, by the heat generated, the cancerous tissue, explains Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The results are encouraging. Of the 111 patients treated, 89% had been alive for two years even though they had not undergone any radical treatment.
20% of patients who would normally have surgery could benefit from this technique. These are men with low- and medium-risk prostate cancer. Ten hospitals have already experimented with this technique in France.
At a press conference held this Thursday in Vaulx-en-Velin, near Lyon, recalls Science and Futurethe Afu underlined that its study “was independent, even if it was presented on the premises of the company EDAP TMS, specialized in the use of ultrasound in urology, which manufactures the equipment used”.
Find the program L’invité santé by Pourquoidocteur with
Professor François Desgrandchamps, Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris,
aired on March 24, 2016
