The male lumpectomy: rationale for a cancer targeted approach for prostate cryoablation. A review.

Lumpectomy to treat breast cancer has revolutionized the management of that disease. Lumpectomy showed that the quality of life of the individual patient can successfully be integrated into the equation of cancer treatment, without major loss of cancer treatment efficacy. Prostate cancer raises many of the same issues that breast cancer does in women. Impotence and incontinence, affects the male self image and psyche no less than the loss of a breast does a woman. Management of prostate cancer ranges from no treatment at all ("watchful waiting") to treatments in which the whole gland is destroyed (radiation therapy, cryosurgery) or removed (radical prostatectomy), with presently no treatment in between these extremes. Pathologic literature indicates, however, that 35% of prostate cancers are solitary and unilateral. In addition, long term studies have confirmed that cryoabltion for prostate cancer is an efficacious treatment. In this paper we will examine the rationale for a "male lumpectomy" using cryoablation and present preliminary data supporting it's role in prostate cancer management.