“Thanks to the possibility of preserving the healthy tissue surrounding the area affected by the tumor, we are able to act exclusively in the area affected by the disease”. Thus introduces the importance of focal therapy for the treatment of prostate canceril Prof. Federico Dehò, Director of Urology at the Circolo Hospital, confirming the success of the first two procedures held in Varese.
«This method, – he explains – which is proposed as an alternative to the classic surgery of radical removal of the prostate, allows to significantly reduce the known side effects of incontinence and erectile dysfunction, difficult to avoid with the classic surgical operation. However, it also offers many other advantages, including a rapid post-operative recovery and a reduced duration of the intervention itself. Focal therapy is absolutely painless: a minimum of anesthesia is used for the sole purpose of keeping the patient still during the most delicate phases of the procedure ».
“Unfortunately, it is a method that can only be practiced in particular situations – Deho specifies – The ideal patient to apply for this treatment must in fact have a small tumor, clearly identifiable and therefore easily attacked inside the prostate. This usually translates into the possibility of being able to exploit this technique in less than 20% of prostate cancers that come to our observation ».
In detail, focal therapy techniques exploit the introduction of one or two needles which, thanks to the ultrasound guide during the intervention, allow to reach and subsequently treat in a selective manner, thanks to the action of a laser beam, the affected regions. from the disease. All this exploits the data previously obtained thanks to the magnetic resonance and Fusion biopsy techniques, successfully introduced at the Circolo Hospital for several years.