Ultrasound therapy

OBJECTIVE: To report our experience with salvage high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) in patients with local failure after brachytherapy for prostate cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Whole-gland HIFU was administered to prospectively recruited patients with local histologic failure after brachytherapy at 2 institutions in the United Kingdom and Canada. Functional and oncologic outcomes of the procedure were analyzed.

RESULTS: Nineteen patients underwent the treatment, 12 with Gleason sum 7 and 5 with Gleason sum 8 at recurrence. Thirteen men had grade-3a or -3b complications by the Clavien system; there were no grade-4 or -5 complications. The most common postoperative complication was dysuria, which was self-limited. Three men developed rectourethral fistulae. The overall continence rate was 68.4%. At a mean follow-up of 51.6 months, all men were alive. The overall biochemical recurrence-free survival rate was 66.7% and 73.3% using the"nadir prostate-specific antigen level"+1.3 ng/mL and +2 mg/ml criteria, respectively. This study is limited by the small cohort size, relatively short follow-up period, and heterogeneity of the patient population.

CONCLUSION: In this, the largest prospective series to date, we demonstrate that salvage HIFU for locally recurrent prostate cancer after failed primary brachytherapy has encouraging disease control results, albeit with a relatively high complication rate.