Focussed Ultrasound

[Guest guest]

Deduncan,

yes, they use it on breast and prostate cancer. Both these are " near the

surface " , i.e. not so much danger of bits of bowel or bones or bladder

getting in the way, not so far for the beam to penetrate.

Given the advances in molecular science however, I would prefer to have

anything growing in my breast removed and tested in a path lab. It think

that this reveals much more information than a biopsy that is important for

doctors to know in order to plan further treatment. However, I haven't read

up much on breast cancer yet, although I have a copy of the Love

Breast book which I intend to get stuck into soon.

It is not so much the problem that the procedure is not promising. It is.

It is more the problem " what are the women being told " . Are these doctors

being honest about the fact that only a few hundred procedures have been

done for fibroids, especially the women that want to have children. It also

seems to me that there is a lot of money behind this and some of the

financial wheeling and dealing isn't out in the open. I am not convinced

that hospital review boards in Europe are vigorous in the same way that

U.S. ones may be. Doctors in Germany don't have to worry much about being

taken to court and saddled with huge damage payments.

When I have got my next project out of the way, I am going to be writing a

letter to the hospital carrying out FUS in Germany and asking them a lot of

questions.

Of course I hope the women on this board who have had FUS will continue to

report and I also hope very much that they all have successful procedures.

At least I know the women on this board are extremey well informed and go

into things with their eyes fully open.

At 10:20 07.02.04 +0000, you wrote:

>Message: 8

> Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 21:25:47 -0000

>

>Subject: Re: My Concerns re: FUS

>

>I thought they did use FUS on other tumors? I thought its success on

>other tumors led to the thought it could be used on fibroids. Not

>sure though. Also, I know that Internal Review Board for clinical

>trials are fairly rigorous. I am not sure if the documentation is

>public, but it should be. I am not in research,but I have friends

>who are involved with cancer research and have talked about the fact

>it is not easy to get human clinical trials started. I would hate to

>think that thought process was the uterus was useless. My hope is the

>thought process is to find a less painful and invasive mechanism for

>ridding women of these pain in the you know what tumors.

[Guest guest]

Ah, I should have read all the posts. I didn't realize you were

referring to Europe. Yes, it does not have the same malpractice

feeding frenzy as here in the US. I as a general rule do not trust

the medical field (and I work in it), but I do have quite a few

friends in cancer research and I know their intentions are very

honorable. But as you say some of the responsibility is on the

person having the procedure, it is best be as educated as possible

and go on your gut from there.

Are they saying FUS is safe for those still desiring children?? They

are definitely not saying that here. That is scary! I would think it

is FAR TOO SOON to make that claim.

Debbie

-- In uterinefibroids , Norton

wrote:

> It is not so much the problem that the procedure is not promising.

> It is.

> It is more the problem " what are the women being told " . Are these

>doctors being honest about the fact that only a few hundred procedures have

>been done for fibroids, especially the women that want to have children.

>It also seems to me that there is a lot of money behind this and some of

>the financial wheeling and dealing isn't out in the open. I am not

>convinced that hospital review boards in Europe are vigorous in the same way

>that U.S. ones may be. Doctors in Germany don't have to worry much about

>being taken to court and saddled with huge damage payments.