Clinical Care

A joint effort between radiology and urology is leading a path toward more effective patient care for patients with prostate cancer.

Temel Tirkes, MD, professor of radiology and imaging sciences, and Michael Koch, MD, chair of the Department of Urology, became the first within Indiana University Health to perform a new procedure in an intra-operative MRI suite that uses the TULSA-PRO® (Transurethral Ultrasound Ablation) system to ablate prostate tissue.

This minimally invasive procedure uses directional ultrasound to produce very high temperatures to ablate (destroy) targeted prostate tissue. The procedure combines real-time MRI with robotically-driven directional thermal ultrasound to deliver predictable, physician-prescribed ablation of whole-gland or partial prostate tissue. The TULSA procedure is radiation-free, incision-free and FDA-cleared. Once recovered from general anesthesia, patients are discharged. Radiologists and urologists can customize the procedure depending on the location of the biopsy-proven malignancy and can avoid essential nerves, and other structures, around the prostate. Based on five-year follow-up data, this procedure has a relatively higher quality of life compared to prostatectomy. Collaborative efforts like this enable future physicians to uncover new procedures that will, in turn, generate better outcomes for patients.