Patients report no changes in urinary or sexual function Credit: UCLA
With the combination of MR and ultrasound, focal laser ablation – the application of heat via a laser to a targeted tumor – may have the potential to treat intermediate risk prostate cancer patients, a new study shows. The laser technique uses MR and ultrasound to guide a laser into cancer tumors and when it is heated, the laser will destroy the tissue.
With Artemis, a device that combines both MR and ultrasound in real-time imaging, the researchers from University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences (UCLA) tested the device on 11 men in a clinical setting.
The men were under local anesthesia and the team found that the procedure was “tolerated well” by the patients who did not feel any side effects. Four months later during a follow up, the men had no changes in urinary or sexual function.
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“Our feeling was that if you can see prostate cancer using the fusion MRI and can put a needle in the spot to biopsy it, why not stick a laser fiber in the tumor the same way to kill it,” said Dr. Leonard Marks, a professor of urology and director of the UCLA Active Surveillance Program, in a statement. “Instead of removing the whole organ, target just the cancer inside it.”
In the same study, the researchers had also tested ablation using MR only. The eight men who underwent this surgery reported no serious side effects, the researchers said, but a longer-term follow up study is needed.
In the following video, MR-ultrasound fusion is discussed by Marks and two colleagues. “Prostate cancer is being diagnosed today almost exactly the same way it was over 25 years ago,” he said in the video. “Ultrasound is used to guide us to parts of the prostate and we systematically sample the prostate but we can’t see tumors with ultrasound.”
According to the announcement, by using MR, physicians are able to perform precise laser treatment, and the fusion-MR “improves it even further” since it provides real-time ultrasound that clearly shows the tumor.
“This focal therapy provides a middle ground for men to choose between radical prostatectomy and active surveillance, between doing nothing and losing a prostate,” said Marks.
Physicians at UCLA have been using Artemis since 2009 and have performed 2,000 biopsies with MR and ultrasound.
