Sunao Shoji, MD, PhD, MBA, Associate Professor of Urology at Tokai University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, discusses his institution’s study into using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to treat localized prostate cancer in Asian men with Peter K.F. Chiu, Associate Consultant and Honorary Clinical Assistant Professor in the Prince of Wales Hospital at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Dr. Shoji explains that HIFU is an attractive therapeutic modality for focal therapy of the prostate, since it aims to cure while preserving continence and erectile function. He describes his procedures for performing HIFU, including the use of MRI-TRUS elastic fusion image-guided prostate biopsy, and discusses the results of the study, observing that target lesions were changed to fibrosis in all patients, but that significant prostate cancer was detected in the untreated area in 8.9% of patients due to selection failures. Dr. Shoji theorizes that focal therapy using HIFU for localized prostate cancer for patients in Asia would have similar oncological and functional outcomes to those previously reported in Europe, but further large studies are required to verify the oncological and functional outcomes of this treatment.
