VIDEO: Recent advancements in prostate cancer treatment

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify cperla@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

We continue over the years to prove the treatments that we currently have by decreasing the side effects of those treatments, both in the short and long-term, and also increasing the effectiveness of those treatments. Specifically in surgery, we continue to move towards minimally invasive surgery. We have gone from a traditional open approach to, or a laparoscopic then robotic. And now we're continuing to refine that with newer generations of the surgical robot, such as the single port robot. And what that has allowed is to provide a more precise surgery with less blood loss, potentially quicker recovery.

And we've used this technology to now shift a procedure which used to have a you know, a night or two in the hospital. We're, transitioning it to an outpatient surgery. So more and more patients are being at home the day of surgery, which is good for patients. And so we continue to improve the surgical technology. Also with respect to radiation. I think we're continuing to improve that there is stereotactic radiation, which more accurately focuses the radiation to the prostate and minimizes damage to surrounding structures such as the bladder or the rectum and radiation is given and fewer sessions. So in traditionally radiation for prostate cancer is delivered over several weeks up to eight or nine weeks, but newer approaches for radiation have cut that back significantly in some cases, just to, you know, a handful of treatments.

So I think there is improvements in radiation and also we're developing newer treatments for prostate cancer. An example is HIFU, so we recently approved over the last couple of years in the United States is high frequency ultrasound, which rather than either radiating or surgically removing a prostate blades or destroys the prostate tissue using high-frequency ultrasound it's is, you know, less invasive for the patient and carries those benefits with it. In addition to improving the treatments we currently have, we're developing and offering new treatments. And finally, we're re-looking at how we approach prostate cancer treatment, so traditionally we treat the entire prostate, but I think more and more we're realizing that there may be a subset of patients where the significant portion of the cancer is localized one area of the prostate. And perhaps we can treat that one area rather than the entire prostate and therefore potentially minimize side effects for the patient. Things like you know, focal treatment, focal HIFU, or focal laser ablation have been offered to patients as well as focal radiation and also focal surgery. So a partial removal of the prostate has been explored as well, so I think we are looking at different approaches for the treatment of prostate cancer.