The initials HIFU stand for high intensity focused ultrasound.

For prostate cancer HIFU may be used to treat:

• early cancers of the prostate gland, that haven't spread
• cancer that has come back in the prostate after radiotherapy. This is known as salvage treatment.

HIFU involves a general or spinal anaesthetic. Under the anaesthetic a probe is inserted into the back passage (rectum). It is then pushed through the wall of the bowel into the prostate gland. The probe produces a high energy beam of ultrasound. This heats the affected area of the prostate gland, destroying the cancer. The probe is surrounded by a cooling balloon to protect normal tissue from damage.

Possible complications of treatment include:

• urine infection
• stress incontinence (dribbling urine when you cough or sneeze, or with some other movements)
• impotence

Rarely the wall of the bowel may be damaged.

There have only be a small number of studies using HIFU to treat prostate cancer. So, it is difficult to be sure how effective it is. But some of the men who have been treated with it appear to have been cured.

At the moment HIFU is only available at a few hospitals in the UK, and is still an experimental treatment. It has recently been approved by NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence). So, it is likely to become more widely used over the next few years.