← Return to Tulsa Pro - my initial treatment experience

Discussion

Tulsa Pro - my initial treatment experience

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 16 hours ago | Replies (115)

Comment receiving replies
@pdcar4756

In October of this year I had the TULSA-PRO procedure done at Mayo Rochester by Dr. David Woodrum. My prostate was approximately 100cc. Dr. Woodrum wasn't certain due to the size of my prostate and the location of my lesion (anterior transition zone) whether the probe could reach it effectively. Seems it has a 6mm maximum distance it can transmit the HIFU signal. My outer distance was 5.9mm. But he said the probe tended to tilt in my favor once inserted and in place. He said in real time if he could not use HIFU he would switch to cryotherapy to freeze the lesion. Both procedures would be MRI guided, in-bore in real time, which to my way of understanding provides a degree of precision most ultrasound guided focal therapy treatment modes do not provide. So I was OK with his assessment. Either TULSA-PRO or cryo were fine by me. To my good fortune he was able to use TULSA-PRO. There is one other step in this process I wasn't aware of until the day before my procedure when Dr. Woodrum ordered a CT Scan of my pelvic region. Its purpose was to determine if there calcium deposits inside my prostate. Calcium deposits deflect the HIFU waveforms and make treatment with this technology problematic and its use not possible, as areas of the lesion cannot be properly heated as a result. Again to my good fortune, I had one small deposit but located far away from the region of interest. I also talked with Dr. Woodrum about doing something about the size of my prostate. As we both know 100cc is a large prostate, especially for me as I'm a small framed man. As part of this procedure he took very wide margins and ablated approximately 60cc of my prostate. So my hope is after all the healing is complete, I'll have a functioning prostate that is about 40cc, the appropriate size for a man my age, 77. I'm one month into the healing. I had a fair amount of edema in my pubic region and scrotum for the first couple of weeks, which has now subsided. My urine stream is reasonably good. My only real symptom at this time is frequency of urination is higher than normal, amount urinated is lower than normal, and urge to urinate when my body says so is pretty strong. Hopefully that will correct itself in the coming months. Hope this is helpful to you.

Jump to this post


Replies to "In October of this year I had the TULSA-PRO procedure done at Mayo Rochester by Dr...."

That frequency and urge should get better. When I was at your stage I had the same thing. When I had to go, I had maybe two minutes or it was coming out. I carried a portable urinal with me in my car. I am now at four months out and everything is back to normal. It was really pretty much back to normal at two months.