Prostate cancer is a disease in which cancer develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Cancer occurs when cells of the prostate mutate ...
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Post HIFU Surgery Progress/Prognosis
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Well folks, it is 11 days since my husband had his HIFU surgery at Can-Am HIFU Surgical Center in Toronto, Ontario.
He was in surgery and recovery a total of 5 hours, walked out on his own to our hotel, slept, and walked downtown for a light dinner that evening. Flew back to Houston a day later; saw his urologist in Houston, who had flown to Toronto to do the surgery himself as he is licensed in Canada and the US, who removed the catheter a week later. Prognosis is excellent, no other doctor's appt needed for 90 days at which time a PSA will be done to confirm the cancer is gone. AND, best of all, 3 days after surgery, my husband had an erection! 11 days after surgery, he had an erection AND ejaculation, although there was not much fluid since the prostate is 100% removed. BUT, at least he has NO incontinence and NO erectile dysfunction after prostate surgery. HOORAH!!! For those men who have localized, contained prostate cancer, PLEASE check out HIFU (high intense focused ultrasound), it is well worth the investigation. We'll wait for 90 days now, and pray he is cancer free. Good luck to all of you. Feel free to contact us if you would like more insight into HIFU. Posted on 05/08/08, 04:05 pm |
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This is excellent news.
I'm so glad to hear of these good results. Best wishes for continued health and fun. 
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Taelon,
the prostate is "removed" thru the use of high frequency ultrasound. Or, rather, destroyed and the dead tissue sluffed off. The procedure is completely non-invasive.....no surgical cutting.
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Wow HIFU sounds so good. I did so much research and did not know about until now. Well, if my IMRT doesn't work out, I know about this now.
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Robyn375......the surgery isn't approved by the FDA yet; that's why there isn't much info in the states about.
The kicker is that the surgical equipment (Sonablate 500) was developed at Indian University. HIFU has been used in many other countries over the past 8 years, and it is sad, it takes the FDA so long to approve this treatment. I met 4 other couples the day of my husband's surgery....2 from the US and 2 from Canada.....who had had the treatment the day before. ALL said they would do it again in a heartbeat. I just wish there was a way to get the word out to men that this is an OPTION to explore BEFORE they decide on any treatment. Good luck to you.
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Thank you. Did any insurance cover it ?
I was thinking about going to Boston to do Proton therapy but they convinced me at the Pluta Cancer Center that it would not be worth doing that over IMRT where I could have it done locally. I think they were right about that. I am certain the IMRT worked for at least the short run. So hopefully HIFU will replace the modern Davinci process, which is robotics. I'll bet what is holding up FDA is that Robotics is so new that it still had to pay for itself and it is too early to scrap all of the expensive equipment.
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I have a friend who just had PC robotic surgery 4 months ago! He still has a catheter, isn't working, and would never, never do this type of surgery for PC again. He's really, really depressed.
As for insurance coverage on HIFU, the urologist doing the surgery had 2 other patients who's insurance denied their HIFU coverage. But, upon appeal, the insurance company (Blue Cross) covered 85% of the total HIFU cost. We've submitted all our claims for the surgery, and we are just waiting for a response. At least we know that a precedent has been set for payment up to 85%. But, we did have to pay up front, then submit the claim. Good luck.
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P.S. to insurance coverage.
Doesn't matter if insurance covers our costs of HIFU surgery or not.....why? Because my husband is back at work without any problems, no catheter, catheter incision healed, pee'ing normally, etc. It was well worth the investment for my husband to be a whole man and healthy. We'd spend the money again if we had to.
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Im glad that it all worked out for you. I had to wait until I had a job with insurance coverage before I could afford all of the test and treatment I had.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where health care is more of a luxury and those who can't afford it, suffer greatly. That is unless you are labled something where you can have SSI or SSDI . But for the typical working person if you don't have insurance benefits you are screwed.
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