The use of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the primary treatment of prostate cancer will probably become more common in the very near future. HIFU has been used for many years in Europe and Mexico and has recently been in clinical trials in the United States. HIFU has been a successful method of prostate cancer treatment, so to assume it will obtain FDA approval in the future is not unreasonable.
Like all other primary prostate cancer treatments a certain number of HIFU treatments will fail and the disease will progress, either coming back in what is left of the treated prostate gland remainder and the surrounding tissue (localized) or in other remote body parts (metastatic).
Radiotherapy is an obvious treatment option in the case of local failure following HIFU treatment. However, prior to establishing radiotherapy as a good salvage treatment option there needs to be studies confirming its efficacy. Such study was performed and its results published in the J