A trial of high intensity focused ultrasound to treat prostate cancer contained in one part of the prostate gland (PART)

Cancer type:

Prostate cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Pilot

This trial compared high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with surgery to remove the prostate.

It was for men who had a medium risk of their prostate cancer coming back and had only one area of cancer in their prostate gland.

This trial was open for people to join between 2015 and 2017. The team reported the results in 2018.

More about this trial

Some prostate cancers are slow growing and might never cause problems. The doctor might suggest waiting to see whether the cancer grows rather than giving treatment straight away.

Prostate cancer that is medium risk, is likely to need surgery or radiotherapy. These treatments have side effects. These include urinary problems such as leaking urine and difficulty getting an erection.

Doctors thought that treating only the areas of cancer and not removing the prostate would cause fewer side effects.

In this trial they looked at a type of treatment called high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). It aims to kill cancer cells with high frequency sound waves.

This was a feasibility trial Open a glossary item . The main aims of the trial were to find out:

if enough men are willing to join this type of trial
what the recruitment problems might be

Summary of results

This trial was for men who had cancer that was contained within the prostate and had not spread. And who hadn’t had treatment for prostate cancer in the past.

Trial design
82 men were put into a treatment group at random. There were 2 groups:

41 men had an operation to remove the prostate
41 men had high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to treat areas of cancer in the prostate

Results
The team looked at the results of the trial. They found enough men were willing to join.

The team also found that most men were willing to complete and return the patient reported outcome measure (PROMS) questionnaires. This helps assess how people are feeling, and how they rate their quality of life. Open a glossary item

The team looked at quality of life. They didn’t find much of a difference between the 2 treatment groups.

There were a few recruitment problems with the trial. The main reason that some people didn’t want to join was because they had a preference about which treatment they wanted to have. Some doctors and nurses found it difficult to talk about the trial with their patient. This was because they had a preference in terms what they thought the best treatment would be for their patient.

Conclusion
The trial team say that this trial was successful. They concluded that it would be possible to run a larger trial comparing radical treatment Open a glossary item with HIFU for people with prostate cancer. The team are doing a larger trial comparing these treatments to see how well they work.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, this article is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Journal articles
Partial ablation versus radical prostatectomy in intermediate-risk prostate cancer: the PART feasibility RCT

F Hamdy and others
Health Technology Assessment 2018. Volume 22, Issue 22, ISSN 1366-5278

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the articles above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists peer reviewed Open a glossary item and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the articles is free and available to view.