Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 19, 2025
A New Technique for Treating Low-risk Prostate Cancer—Super Active Surveillance
Published on: November 7, 2025
Focal therapy compared to radical prostatectomy for non-metastatic prostate cancer: a propensity score-matched study
Taimur T Shah1,2, Deepika Reddy3,4, Max Peters5
1Imperial Prostate, Division of Surgery, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, UK. t.shah@imperial.ac.uk.
Introduction:
Focal therapy (FT) ablates areas of prostate cancer rather than treating the whole gland. We compared oncological outcomes of FT to radical prostatectomy (RP).
Methods:
Using prospective multicentre databases of 761 FT and 572 RP cases (November/2005-September/2018), patients with PSA < 20 ng/ml, Gleason
Results:
335 radical prostatectomy and 501 focal therapy patients were eligible for matching. For focal therapy, 420 had HIFU and 81 cryotherapy. Cryotherapy was used predominantly for anterior cancer. After matching, 246 RP and 246 FT cases were identified. For radical prostatectomy, mean (SD) age was 63.4 (5.6) years, median (IQR) PSA 7.9 g/ml (6-10) and median (IQR) follow-up 64 (30-89) months. For focal therapy, these were 63.3 (6.9) years, 7.9 ng/ml (5.5-10.6) and 49 [34-67] months, respectively. At 3, 5 and 8 years, FFS (95%CI) was 86% (81-91%), 82% (77-88%) and 79% (73-86%) for radical prostatectomy compared to 91% (87-95%), 86% (81-92%) and 83% (76-90%) following focal therapy (p = 0.12).
Conclusions:
In patients with non-metastatic low- intermediate prostate cancer, oncological outcomes over 8 years were similar between focal therapy and radical prostatectomy.
