It is very important for men and their wives to do their homework when considering treatment options for their localized prostate cancer. This is especially so since most urologists and prostate cancer support groups are not totally conversant with all of the 6 broad groups of treatment options for prostate cancer and will be unlikely to apprise you of them. These 6 categories of treatment options include HIFU,cryoablation,radiation,surgery,androgen deprivation therapy (adt) and active surveillance.
The reason it is important for men to study their treatment options for localized prostate cancer is that generally, for properly selected patients, there are no clear survival benefits between the different treatment categories. The complications,however, are very different between the options. This has been outlined at http://www.hifurx.com/cancer/quality-of-life.html . Therefore, if generally the survival benefits are similar for all of the treatment options surely you would want to focus on options that are associated with minimal complications and superior quality of life (qol) issues. Especially since the complications associated with the treatment of a man’s prostate cancer also indirectly affect the spouse and the partnership lifelong.
HIFU, as a minimally invasive,out patient,non surgical, non radiation treatment for localized prostate cancer is uniquely positioned to accomplish both survival benefits and superior quality of life after treatment.