[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 20035-20036]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                NATIONAL PROSTATE CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SUE WILKINS MYRICK

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 28, 2004

  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, September is National Prostate Cancer 
Awareness Month. Education and advocacy are crucial in the fight 
against cancer. Imagine a disease that takes the lives of 30,000 U.S. 
men each year. Now imagine that disease ablated in just a few hours 
with minimal pain and side effects. Ultrasound is revolutionizing 
prostate cancer treatment and is well on its way to replacing 
traditional treatment models.
  I am honored to have a company in my district that is making this 
revolutionary treatment a reality. U.S. HIFU is a development company 
dedicated to fighting cancer and preserving patient quality of life 
with noninvasive high intensity focused ultrasound technology. High 
Intensity Focused Ultrasound, HIFU, is a state-of-the-art acoustic 
ablation technique for prostate cancer treatment that utilizes the 
power of ultrasound to destroy deep seated tissue with pinpoint 
accuracy.
  HIFU is noninvasive, non-ionizing and 88-99 percent of patients 
treated have a PSA (prostate specific antigen) of less than 1 after one 
year, which indicates no evidence of recurrence.
  Equally important is that there has been minimal to no incidence of 
incontinence and only 7 percent erectile dysfunction.
  It can be preformed in one to three hours on an outpatient basis with 
an epidural anesthetic. Unlike other treatments, HIFU patients

[[Page 20036]]

are up and walking around within hours of being treated.
  The Sonablate 500, the HIFU device, targets tissue in the prostate in 
the same way that sunrays entering a magnifying glass burn a leaf. When 
a magnifying glass is held above a leaf in the correct position on a 
sunny day the sunrays intersect below the lens and cause the leaf to 
burn at the point of intersection. The scientific principles at work in 
this example are the same as those with HIFU. The energy source is the 
only difference. Instead of light as the energy source, HIFU utilizes 
sound.
  In basic terms, the technology allows the physicians to get a live 
image of the prostate and cancerous tumor, carefully target cells with 
custom treatment planning and kill the tumor with a beam of clean 
ultrasound energy effectively destroying the cancerous tissue, leaving 
surrounding healthy tissue untouched.
  HIFU involves no incision, and it can be applied repeatedly without 
damaging other tissue, unlike radiation-based therapies. As many as 
one-third of patients who receive either external radiation therapy or 
brachytherapy have a recurrence of cancer; fortunately, HIFU can be a 
salvage technique for these recurrent failures.
  Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer found in American 
men and the second leading cause of death in men. The American Cancer 
Society estimates that there will be about 230,900 new cases of 
prostate cancer in the United States in the year 2004. About 29,900 men 
will die of this disease.

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