At the Bedside: New focal therapies at UTHealth Houston make prostate cancer treatment easier on patients
Steven Canfield, MD, performs a focal therapy procedure that uses electrodes to destroy targeted tissue with electrical pulses during prostate cancer surgery.
One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime and 11 years ago, Morton McPhail, now 73, became one of them. Fortunately, time was on his side.
The prostate gland, found only in men, produces seminal fluid. Risk factors for prostate cancer include age (most cases are diagnosed in men over 65), family history, and inheriting a gene mutation. Having a father or brother with prostate cancer doubles the risk of developing the disease. Mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, linked to ovarian and breast cancer in some families, can also increase the risk of prostate cancer in men.
Prostate cancer is generally slow-growing and, if found early, can be successfully treated. The prostate-specific antigen test, or PSA, in combination with new techniques in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), can diagnose early disease.