Microwave treatments for prostate disease

This paper describes three novel microwave techniques that show promise for being useful in treating diseases of the prostate. They are: microwave ure throplasty for providing immediate symptomatic relief of urinary obstructio ns caused by benign prostatic hyperthrophy-this technique uses microwave ba lloon catheters for producing biological stems in the urethra. Initial resu lts obtained in an Federal Drug Administration approved Phase I clinical tr ial are highly encouraging, hyperthermia produced in the prostate by dual m icrowave balloon catheters-when combined with external beam radiation or im planted radioactive seeds, this technique has the potential of improving lo cal recurrence rates of prostate cancer over the rates that are obtained wh en only radiation treatments are given, and microwave poration therapy-a th erapy that, when combined with either systemic or locally administered chem otherapy, has been shown to be effective in shrinking implanted prostatic t umors in rats. The potential clinical advantages of microwave poration/chem otherapy over electrochemotherapy using dc pulses for treating cancers are discussed.