Focal salvage therapy for locally recurrent prostate cancer: a review

Objectives: To evaluate the current status of focal therapy as the salvage treatment option for patients with recurrent prostate cancer after established therapy (radiation, surgery) failure for localized tumor.
Methods: A MedLine search using specified search terms was done on December 23, 2011. This research rendered 346 papers related to High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), 644 papers related to cryosurgery, 180 related to photodynamic therapy and 3 articles related to radio frequency ablation. Very few of these papers presented original outcome data and are included in the present review.
Results: No controlled trial was available for analysis. 
Conclusions: Salvage HIFU in patients with local recurrence of prostate cancer after radical EBRT indicate is a reasonable treatment option, but better patient selection criteria are needed. It is a promising treatment option for local recurrence after radiation therapy, with morbidity comparable with other forms of salvage treatment. The side effects are not negligible but comparable with other forms of salvage treatment. Photodynamic therapy is a new option that could be suitable for organ-confined PC recurrence after radiotherapy, but the data are very few.