HIFU in the News

Published April 26, 2018
 

When Kitty Smith, of Christiansburg, Virginia, learned her 9-year-old cocker spaniel, Maddi Lynn Grace, had been diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma on her left front leg earlier this year, she knew right away that she would take her beloved companion to the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech for treatment.

Smith’s swift decision was informed by prior experience with the high-quality specialty care at the college’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Read More

Published March 20, 2018

Dr. Michael Lazar - California HIFU
Medical Director – HIFU Prostate Services
http://californiahifu.com/

HIFU (High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound) is a minimally-invasive surgical procedure recently introduced to the U.S, and only available in a few markets. Yet, its continued use by surgeons is leading to increased interest in the device’s effectiveness – especially amid a national trend that sees more younger men being diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer each year.

A slower-acting cancer than others, many older men (65+) choose not to seek treatment to avoid the often-harmful after-effects of surgery or radiation. However, younger men (40+), have little choice but to accept treatment, or face early death. In development for several years, HIFU offers hope where traditional surgical methods have left men scarred physically and mentally. A robotics-based device using focused sound waves to heat and destroy cancerous tissue in the prostate, many patients are able to eradicate prostate cancer without suffering the after-effects of traditional treatment (which can include erectile dysfunction and incontinence).

Read More

By Ariela Katz Published: September 20, 2017

Destroying part of the prostate to treat prostate cancer may be just as effective as removing the entire organ, but without many of the distressing side effects that tend to accompany the more invasive operation, according to investigators in the United Kingdom.

Based on the results of a feasibility study, the researchers are moving forward with a randomized controlled trial that will compare partial prostate ablation with radical prostatectomy in patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer, according to a presentation at the American Urological Association’s 2017 Annual Meeting, held in May in Boston.

In partial ablation, the portion of the prostate gland containing the tumor is destroyed through one of several types of “focal therapies,” while the rest of the organ is left intact. In the feasibility study, investigators used high-intensity focused ultrasound to achieve partial prostate ablation. In the randomized trial, they hope to also include cryotherapy (freezing), focal brachytherapy (radiation) and vascular targeted photodynamic (light-activated) therapy.

Read More

By Emily Kinzer Published: September 14, 2017, 7:33 am

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Cancer impacts hundreds of thousands of people each year. The CDC estimated from 2010 to 2020 there will be an increase in some cancers. One of those is prostate cancer.

The American Cancer Society states that about one in seven men will get prostate cancer at some point in their life.

A doctor in Indianapolis has been using advanced technology to treat his prostate cancer patients.

It is called HIFU and short for high intensity focused ultrasound. It was approved by the FDA to be used in the U.S. back in 2015.

HIFU focuses high energy ultrasound to a certain area to destory that area of tissue. It is similar to the way a magnifying glass would be used to focus sunlight to heat an area.

Read More

ORLANDO, Fla. - Other than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men.  However treating it can lead to unwanted side effects, which is what Walt Parks wanted to avoid.
"I knew that I had to find something that would not put me down and keep me bringing in an income," he said.
Parks is a massage therapist and fitness instructor.  When he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he knew traditional treatments like surgery and radiation were not for him.
Parks opted for a treatment called High intensity focused ultrasound, also known as HIFU.  It was approved in the United States two years ago and for that reason, it's still relatively unknown.

Read More

2017 Health Care Heroes: Dr. Michael O. Koch Chairman of the Department of Urology, Indiana University Health

March 3, 2017 | Tom Harton

Good things take time, especially in health care.
A treatment for prostate cancer that became available at Indiana University Health about a year ago was 20 years in the making. But it was worth the wait, thanks largely to the efforts of Dr. Michael O. Koch, who has been pursuing the use of high-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU, for the treatment of prostate cancer since shortly after he arrived at IU to chair its urology department in 1998.

Koch, 60, learned about HIFU from Naren Sanghvi, who at the time was an IU School of Medicine professor studying the technology. HIFU was being explored as a treatment for benign enlargement of the prostate, but Koch thought treating highly localized prostate cancer would be a better use for it and embarked on a journey that resulted in the treatment’s receiving U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval in October 2015.

Read More

By Lydia Ramsey | Business Insider – Sun, Sep 4, 2016 18:00 BST

Alexandra Lebenthal, the president and CEO of municipal bond company Lebenthal & Co., has lived with essential tremor since she was 3 years old. It's made daily tasks like taking a sip of coffee a much more complicated task. 

Read More

For this month's cancer awareness campaign Urologist and Prostate cancer expert Dr. Michael Lazar provides an overview of prostate cancer screening options, helping to empower men to make smart choices.

August 18, 2016, by Debby Knox, Updated at 11:36am, August 18, 2016

“When you focus the energy like that, it creates heat and destroys whatever area it’s focused on,” says Dr. Mike Koch, the chairman of the urology department at the IU School of Medicine."

Over 230,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year. For those who need treatment, but want to reduce the side effects, there is a new tool being used at IU Health hospitals. It’s called HIFU or high intensity focused ultrasound.

READ MORE

Dr. Kia Michel discusses HIFU treatments on Good Morning San Diego/KUSI.

Watch Here

Dr. James Cochran of Texas HIFU Partners discusses HIFU treatments on Good Morning Texas/WFAA.

Read More

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 05, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Western States HIFU, in partnership with HIFU Prostate Services, the first and most experienced company to provide HIFU treatment for prostate cancer, is proud to announce that physician partner, Robert Pugach, MD, has treated the most HIFU patients in the western United States.

Read More

Two years ago, in a hospital in Paris, a 38-year-old man lay dying from a golf ball-sized brain tumor. Doctors pumped chemotherapy into his bloodstream through an IV.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been a pointless treatment.

Read More

Focused ultrasound could one day treat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, even depression and OCD. Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports for Everyday Health.

Read More

In October 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first ultrasound system for the ablation of prostate tissue in the United States. This new treatment called high-intensity focused ultrasound or HIFU, is a technology using ultrasound waves to destroy cancerous tissue found in the prostate gland.

Read More

The next step in the explosive interest in focused ultrasound may well be thanks to a Vanderbilt research team's online posting of instructions for their new bench-top pre-clinical "do-it-yourself" system.

Read More

MALAKOFF, 8 June 2016 – THERACLION (Alternext, FR0010120402 – ALTHE), a company specialized in leading-edge medical equipment for echotherapy, announced today that Tübingen University has presented promising Echotherapy results from its breast fibroadenoma (BFA) trial. 90% of BFA patients treated with Echotherapy presented at 12 months post-treatment with no vital fibroadenoma tissue.

Read More

In 2015, two issues related to medicine could be relied on to generate headlines: drug pricing and the proliferation of new value frameworks that claimed to define the value and even the price of drugs in seemingly easy-to-understand ways. In none of the high-profile skirmishes on pricing or frameworks was the voice or perspective of patients and patient groups very much in evidence. But that is beginning to change, in an evolution of a broader shift in the role that patients are playing in the research and development (R&D) enterprise.

Read More

A new approach using ultrasound promises to steer clear of incontinence and impotence, yet some experts are unconvinced the method is as beneficial as it appears

Read More

We present here biophysical models to gain deeper insights into how an acoustic stimulus might influence or modulate neuronal activity.

Read More

DURHAM, N.C. – A new registry that launches this month gives women who have uterine fibroids the opportunity to help determine which strategies are most effective in treating the common condition.

Read More

The Focused Ultrasound Foundation is featured on the cover of the annual Generous Virginians issue of Virginia Business magazine out this June and now available online.

Read More

When it comes to MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), is there nothing it can't do?

Read More

High–Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is a highly precise medical procedure that applies high–intensity focused ultrasound energy to locally heat and destroy diseased or damaged tissue through ablation. HIFU is one modality of therapeutic ultrasound, involving minimally invasive or non–invasive methods to direct acoustic energy into the body.

Read More