“Having the opportunity to impact on the healthcare and the quality of life of a patient is an extremely rewarding and humbling experience. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and the second common cause of death related to cancer. There are numerous treatment options from surgery in the form of radical prostatectomy, lethal ablative freezing with cryosurgery, brachytherapy, and external beam radiation. All of which have variable degrees of effectiveness, but often at the expense or compromise to the patient’s quality of life, particularly in bladder, bowel and sexual function.
My interest in HIFU goes back to 1998, when the technology first was approved in Europe. What fascinated me was the technology’s ability to provide a non-invasive, effective treatment for prostate cancer that preserves a man’s quality of life related issues. Over the years I have seen the improvements and evolution of the technology. Clearly the trend in all surgical disciplines is toward an effective, less invasive treatment…HIFU provides an effective image guided therapy with fewer risks of complications that is truly non-invasive. Medicine is about innovation and science. Patients will never ask for yesterday or today’s medical care. They want tomorrow’s medical innovations. HIFU is very much a futuristic medical technology that is here today. It is an acoustical scalpel without as much as a skin incision. It is the almalgamation of medicine, science and technology”
George M. Suarez, M.D., FACS