Kidney tumours normally grow slowly and so if a small tumour is discovered it is quite common under conventional procedures for no action to be taken other than to monitor its size over a period of months or years. This leaves the patient to live with the anxiety and is likely to lead to surgery when the consultant decides that it is big enough to warrant removal. HIFU can be successfully used to treat such kidney tumours upon discovery so as to destroy the tumour and relieve the associated patient anxiety of living with cancer. If need be surgery is thereby retained as a second line of defence at a later date.
Even in the Oxford trials small-volume renal tumours have been destroyed. The Chinese experience indicates that quite large tumours can be treated successfully in their entirety.
An important feature of HIFU treatment for a patient who has already lost one kidney, or has poor renal function, lies in the potential for preservation of either one or both kidneys, thus avoiding life-long dialysis.
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