About half of the men receiving focal therapy for prostate cancer in the United States have disease that falls outside the group current guidelines support treating this way, according to a research letter in JAMA from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.
Focal therapy targets only the part of the prostate containing cancer, using heat, cold, or laser energy, and leaves the rest of the gland intact. Its appeal is straightforward: compared with removing the whole prostate or irradiating it, it aims to spare urinary and sexual function. That appeal has driven adoption faster than the evidence supporting it has accumulated.
