According to Miami urologist Dr. George Suarez, computerized road-map technology is helping urologists thwart impotence and incontinence in men undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.
The new digital scanning procedure makes the location of the tumor look red on 3D images, which the urologists then use to precisely target and terminate with high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with no damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
The innovative procedure could lead to a threefold decrease in the risk of erectile dysfunction, and effectively eliminate the danger of patients suffering from incontinence.
It’s also being used to perform prostate biopsies, which is a procedure that uses a small amount of cancerous tissue to diagnose the condition. What it means – according to your Miami urologist – is that we treat the cancer not the prostate, and we will be able to abolish incontinence.
Approximately 40,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, making it the most common growth in men, and it is responsible for about 10,000 deaths yearly. Surgical removal of the prostate is one of the most common treatments, but HIFU is a new approach used by your Miami urologist Dr. George Suarez.
Challenges?
One of the challenges of treating prostate cancer is the ability to accurately locate the tumor. Real-time ultrasound images – like those used to observe a baby in the womb – tend to be unclear, so urologists typically remove a relatively large amount of healthy tissue, thereby increasing the risk of impotence or incontinence.
The technology presents your Miami urologist with a picture that combines information from the MRI with information from ultrasound images and allows them to identify and target the cancer on a computer screen in a way similar to how a fighter pilot aims at a target on a screen.
If you are interested in more information from a HIFU prostate cancer treatment specialist, call the office of best Miami urologist Dr. George Suarez today to schedule a consultation.
