For prostate cancer sufferers high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) might be a new hope. HIFU cuts nothing and to all intents and purposes it's not really a vibration, not unless you count radio waves, radar light waves, etc as "vibrations" which they are of course, but not in the context that you are concerning yourself about. HIFU is ultrasound ( like they use for imaging pregnant women), but with the volume turned up and the waves focused right down to the size of a small grain of rice. Perhaps many of you remember what we did as kids with a magnifiying lens and paper/wood ants. These waves pass through your body like the magnified waves of sunlight doing no harm at all, until the reach the focal point, where the short burst blasts the cells at that focal point into eternity. The heat generated at that focal point boils all the cells in that rice grain sized area within seconds, then it lets that cool down, and moves on to the next focal point, no pain, no discomfort. HIFU has been used for years in China, Russia, England, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and so on. It is not used just for prostate cancer, it's also used to treat with a high degree of success liver cancers, with ongoing trials of other soft tissue cancers. |
