HIFU is a highly advanced treatment for prostate cancer. HIFU Treatment Center Japan is welcome patients from all over the world. Sonablate(R) HIFU machine focuses sound waves in a targeted area which rapidly increases the temperature of focus lesion and destroy prostate cancer. More than 1,000 HIFU treatments were performed for 9 years.

HIFU Technology

About High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU)

  • HIFU with the Sonablate® 500 is a non invasive acoustic ablation technique.
  • Acoustic ablation uses intersecting, precision-focused ultrasound waves to raise the temperature of the target tissue to more than 80 to 98 degrees Celsius in three seconds, effectively destroying the tissue.
  • Ultrasound energy is non-ionizing "clean energy" that does not affect tissue surrounding the target zone, as opposed to radiation therapies.
  • In approved countries, HIFU can be given in one to three hours on an outpatient basis with spinal or general anesthesia.
  • HIFU is being studied around the world to treat all types of cancer and soft tissue diseases such as uterine fibrosis, breast cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and kidney cancer.

VIDEO: Watch HIFU Animation

About the Sonablate® 500

  • The Sonablate® 500 is approved in many countries outside the U.S. as an image-guided acoustic ablation device developed by Focus Surgery, Inc. (Indianapolis , U.S.A.) for prostate disease therapy.
  • The technology behind the device originated at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis in the 1970s. It was further developed in leading research centers across the globe.
  • In 2001, The Sonablate® 500 received its CE Mark for European distribution and its MHW approval for Japan. It is also approved for use in Canada, China, Australia, Japan, Costa Rica, South Africa and the Caribbean.
  • Recent studies in Europe have also shown promising results one year following treatment with a lower incidence of erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence than reported in studies of other therapies.
  • In countries where it is approved, the Sonablate® 500 allows a trained urologist to visualize the prostate and plan and monitor the therapy in real time, ensuring maximum precision, flexibility, safety, and control for the clinician.

HIFU energy targets tissue in the prostate in the same way that sunlight focused by a magnifying glass can burn a leaf. When a magnifying glass is held above a leaf, the sun's rays intersect beyond the lens and cause the leaf to burn at the point of intersection.

If you were to insert your hand into the near or far-field area of the sun light's point of intersection, there would be no significant heat felt or harm caused. However, if you place your hand at the point of intersection you will be quickly burned.

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. Instead of a magnifying glass, HIFU uses a transducer. Just as the individual sunray is harmless to the hand, and individual sound wave is harmless to the healthy tissue it travels through.

Informational References:

Visit www.focus-surgery.com for an in-depth explanation of how the Sonablate® 500 works, the history of the technology and the physicians who have performed HIFU with the SB-500.