First reported cases of promising future treatment: magnetic resonance-guided ablation (destruction) using laser thermal therapy or cryoablation to treat recurrent prostate cancer following surgery, say Mayo Clinic clinicians
The first known patient cases using magnetic resonance-guided heat (laser interstitial thermal therapy) or cold (cryoablation) to treat prostate cancer recurrence after surgical removal of the prostate gland were presented by physicians at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 35th Annual Scientific Meeting in Tampa. Many of these patients have also failed salvage radiation treatment and are often presented with limited therapeutic options. MR-guided focal therapy offers a new treatment choice for patients because of the improved detection of early prostate cancer recurrences best seen with MR imaging.
"Magnetic resonance-guided ablation may prove to be a promising new treatment for prostate cancer recurrences; it tailors treatment modality (imaging) and duration to lesion size and location and provides a less invasive and minimally traumatic alternative for men," said David A. Woodrum, M.D., Ph.D., an interventional radiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "The safe completion of four clinical cases using MR-guided ablation therapy to treat prostate cancer in patients who had failed surgery demonstrates this technology's potential," he said, stressing, however, that the application for using ablation therapy in treating prostate cancer is relatively new. In the study-a major collaboration of physicians from Mayo Clinic radiology and urology departments-the four patients with recurrent prostate cancer had previously been treated with radical prostatectomy, an operation to remove the entire prostate gland and adjacent structures. The men underwent salvage therapy treated with either MR-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy, which uses high temperatures generated by local absorption of laser energy, or cryoablation, generating freezing with extremely cold gas destroying cancerous tissue. By using MR imaging with temperature mapping and/or ice ball growth monitoring, clinicians tailored treatments to lesion size and location. "Immediately after treatment, we found no definite residual tumor. The treatment preserved the patients' baseline sexual and urinary function and had no major complications," added Woodrum.