Rectal cancer tumor damaged by ultrasound is a first

A patient with rectal cancer has become the first to have part of their tumor destroyed by ultrasound, say UK doctors.
A patient with rectal cancer has become the first to have part of their tumor destroyed by ultrasound, say UK doctors.


First patient

The first patient to have the method has requested secrecy.
The patient was given a low dose of heat at 70 degrees.
Doctors say they are planning to treat 50 more patients and they will closely monitor them to discover the most effective temperature at which to perform the procedure.
Unlike radiotherapy, HIFU, can be given to a patient a number of times with minimal risk of toxicity.

The study leader, Professor Paul Abel, from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "There is no incision made during the procedure, it's completely non-invasive, so recovery time will be faster too.

"As this is the first time this procedure has ever been performed for rectal cancer, we need to study a wider group of patients to assess how effective the treatment is and whether it has the potential to be curative or to lengthen a patient's life."
A spokesman for the charity Beating Bowel Cancer said it welcomes "advances to improve the quality of patients' lives and relieve symptoms".
"As this is a world first, we look forward to further studies and results with more patients over a longer period."

Dr Robert Glynne-Jones, medical director of Bowel Cancer UK, said the difficulty was that ultrasound could not deal with cases where the cancer had spread into the lymph glands of the body.

He said: "We already have a number of ways of dealing with rectal cancer but this may be useful for when the screening programmed gets going and we can see very early tumors in the future."