Focal Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common solid organ cancer among men and is the second leading cause of cancer death. In 2013 about 238,590 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 29,720 men will die of the cancer. Overall, about 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, but only 1 in 36 men will die. Currently, there are over 2.5 million men in the US living with prostate cancer. Standard treatment for prostate cancer has involved either removal of the prostate (radical prostatectomy) or application of some type of energy to the entire prostate gland in order to kill all of the cells--usually with radiation or cryotherapy (freezing). Over the past decade, it has become apparent that while some men will benefit from treatment for prostate cancer, many will not. Particularly for men with a small amount of low-grade (not very aggressive) type of prostate cancer, the risk of death from this very slow-growing cancer is very low. However, the risk of harm from some of the treatments for prostate cancer is very high. Treatment for prostate cancer can cause erectile dysfunction, urinary leakage, difficulty urinating and overactive bladder and bowel symptoms. One strategy for men with low risk prostate cancer has been to avoid immediate treatment and wait until the cancer starts to grow. The risk of this strategy is that some men may not be able to be cured once the cancer starts to grow. In addition, men who are on this active surveillance protocol can become very nervous, fearing that the cancer will start to spread. A new strategy to avoid some of the treatment harms of prostate cancer while also attempting to avoid allowing the cancer to grow is called focal therapy. Many men with low-risk prostate cancer will have only a small piece of cancer within the prostate gland. These men may benefit from treating only this one area instead of the entire prostate. This will allow the physician to kill the cancer cells and to avoid some of the problems associated with treating the entire prostate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of focal, targeted treatment of prostate cancer, that is, to treat only the small area of cancer instead of the entire prostate. We hope to show that this strategy will reduce the amount of side effects without compromising cancer cure.