OBJECTIVE To assess the short-term outcome in patients with high-risk prostate cancer treated by transrectal high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). PATIENTS AND METHODS From April 2003 to November 2004, 30 patients with high-risk prostate cancer were enrolled in this prospective study; all had transurethral resection of the prostate before transrectal HIFU treatment, using the Ablatherm de...

Manual palpation is a common and very informative diagnostic tool based on estimation of changes in the stiffness of tissues that result from pathology. In the case of a small lesion or a lesion that is located deep within the body, it is difficult for changes in mechanical properties of tissue to be detected or evaluated via palpation. Furthermore, palpation is non-quantitative and cannot be u...

INTRODUCTION Focal therapy offers the possibility of cancer control, without the side effect profile of radical therapies. Early single centre prospective development studies using high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) have demonstrated encouraging genitourinary functional preservation and short-term cancer control. Large multi-centre trials are required to evaluate medium-term cancer contro...

Tissue-mimicking materials (TMMs) can provide a convenient, stable, and reproducible means for testing high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) devices. When TMMs containing thermal sensors are used to measure ultrasound-induced temperature rise, it is important that measurement results reasonably represent those that occur in biological tissue. Therefore the aim of this paper is to compare the...

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a promising technology for cancer treatment. Thereby, heating due to the focusing of the ultrasound non-invasively destroys the tumors. At the present state, the method is clinically restricted to uterine fibroids, adenomyosis, bone metastasis and prostate cancer. In abdominal organs as e.g. the liver, the motion due to breathing causes problems for t...

BACKGROUND Thermal and mechanical high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation techniques are in development for non-invasive treatment of cancer. However, knowledge of in vivo histopathologic and immunologic reactions after HIFU ablation is still limited. This study aims to create a setup for evaluation of different HIFU ablation methods in mouse tumors using high-field magnetic resonance...

A three-dimensional computational model is presented for studying the efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) procedures targeted near large blood vessels. The analysis applies to procedures performed at intensities below the threshold for cavitation, boiling and highly nonlinear propagation, but high enough to increase tissue temperature a few degrees per second. The model is base...

Developments in the technology applied to the field of minimally invasive surgery have led to the exploration of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the treatment of localized prostate cancer. Extensive research and continuous evolution have resulted in two commercially available HIFU devices: the Ablatherm and the Sonablate500. These devices are conceptually the same; however, specifi...

Methods In contrast to transrectal approaches, transurethral ultrasound applicators are simple in construction and designed for single use. Delivery of ultrasound from within the prostate gland avoids passing energy through sensitive structures, and enables rapid tissue ablation. Tissue is coagulated radially outwards from the urethra, with the depth of treatment controlled based on the tempera...

To increase the effectiveness of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatments, prediction of ultrasound propagation in biological tissues is essential, particularly where bones are present in the field. This requires complex full-wave computational models which account for nonlinearity, absorption, and heterogeneity. These models must be properly validated but there is a lack of analytic...