Shear wave for diagnosis and ablation monitoring of prostate cancer

Prostate Cancer is the most common type of cancer and the second cause of cancer death in men in the UK. The limitations in current tools imply that there is still a need for improvements in diagnosis and treatment monitoring. The effectiveness of prostate cancer diagnosis is still low, generating under and over diagnosis. High Intensity Focused Ultrasound ablation is emerging as a focal treatment for prostate cancer, however, a real-time monitoring system is still necessary. Modern imaging techniques can contribute to the diagnosis. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is providing good results but its high cost holds back its wide implementation. Conventional Ultrasound is limited to guiding biopsy. Elastography techniques are emerging as a promising real-time imaging method as cancer nodules are usually stiffer than adjacent normal prostatic tissue. In this project, we propose the use of shear wave propagation as a diagnosis and ablation monitoring method for prostate cancer.

Antonio Gomez