Hot needle treatment zaps prostate cancer

HOT needles t hat fire off microwaves can effectively treat prostate cancer in minutes. A new study has found that within a week of the treatment, the tumour was eradicated in eight of the ten patients who underwent it — and without causing damage to surrounding tissue.

More than 3,300 men in Ireland develop prostate cancer every year. Conventional treatment for the disease, provided it hasn’t spread to other parts of the body, i ncludes surgery, radiotherapy and active surveillance (watching and waiting to see if the cancer progresses).

While surgery and radiotherapy are effective, t hey can have unwanted side- effects, including incontinence, erectile dysfunction and injury to organs surrounding the prostate, such as the rectum and bladder.

The new treatment is a type of focal therapy, where high- dose energy — temperature, electricity and even light — is used to destroy a tumour in the prostate. In this case, microwaves delivered through ultra-fine needles are used.

The needles are inserted into the prostate through the perineum — the area between the anus and the genitals — using real-time scanning to make sure the tumour is targeted correctly.

Up to four needles can be used at one time, depending on the size of the tumour, and the procedure is carried out under a general anaesthetic.

Once the needles are in place, microwave energy, similar to that used in a microwave cooker, is generated and passed through the needles to heat and destroy the tissue.

The whole procedure, which can be carried out as a day case, takes just six to ten minutes.

Results of a study at the Hopitaux de Paris in France on ten patients, whose cancer hadn’t spread beyond the prostate and whose tumours were classed as small, showed the needle treatment can be highly effective, with the target t u mo u r being completely eradicated after just seven days in eight of the ten patients in the study.

Furthermore, there were no adverse events or complications reported. A larger trial with 30 patients is due to start soon at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Commenting on the new approach, Professor Raj Persad, a consultant urologist said: ‘The aim of this focal therapy with needles is to kill t he cancer without t he patient enduring any side-effects.

‘The challenge is showing that the treatment effects are long-lasting and that there is a low recurrence rate, but early results are very encouraging.’