CHONGQING Oct.29 (Xinhuanet) -- Xiaoxiong, a junior student who enjoys swimming and Kungfu Tea, celebrated her 10th survival anniversary in a special way. She was invited to participate in the First International Summit of Non-Invasive Treatment on 22nd of October 2009.
Eleven years ago, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma which has a very high mortality rate even with amputation. Because of the technology of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), she lives a normal and happy life now. Even her limb has been saved.
On the afternoon of the 22nd the first details of 19 cases of different malignancy patients, who had survived 10 years following treatment with High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), were released. The details emerged during the First International Summit of Non-Invasive Treatment held by Chongqing Medical University and People's Liberation Army 307 Hospital (Beijing).
Professor Zhang Lian from Chongqing Medical University presented the details of the 19 patients from 8 provinces. The patients, aged between 16 and 80, suffered from various diseases including liver cancer, osteosarcoma, breast cancer, soft tissue tumors and soft tissue sarcoma. The longest surviving time is 11 years and 7 months until now. Four of them came to the conference, shared their experiences and took photos with physicians who treated them. They drew a warm applause from the audience and the attendees were very touched.
Involved in the Summit were more than 120 representatives, many of whom are well-known scientists and experts in minimal invasive or non-invasive treatment from 19 countries and areas around the world. As a new technology, being non-invasive and bloodless, HIFU has received much attention from doctors and patients alike.
The inventor of JC, the system which was used to treatment patients ten years ago, Prof. Wang Zhibiao said, "Five years survival is a standard to define the cure by WHO. We are happy that our patients can live longer than 10 years. Ten years ago, the technology was at an early stage. Most of the patients who chose HIFU had relapsed after surgery or were patients with advanced malignancy. But the results are still encouraging. You can imagine, with the improvement of HIFU technology and with more experience obtained from clinical practice, how the technology will benefit the patients. We are very confident that in the near future this technology will help most of the patients to defeat cancer especially cancers identified at an early stage."
HIFU, which is thermal ablation, is quite different from thermal therapy. Started in 1988, Professor Wang Zhibiao with his team devoted themselves to this technology. In December 1997, the first patient was successfully treated with the JC system. It was the first clinical application using ultrasound guided HIFU to treat malignancy extra-corporeally. After that, bone tumors, breast tumors, liver cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, pancreatic cancer and various solid malignancies have been treated, and 13 countries and regions have employed the system.
One of the three foreign academics from the Chinese Engineering Academy, the academician Dr. Sheung Tat FAN from the University of Hong Kong, said in an interview, "HIFU will be a standard in cancer treatment."
The chairman of the European Sonochemistry Society, Prof. Timothy Mason from Coventry University in the UK is the first person to introduce the JC HIFU system from Chongqing Haifu to the West. He predicted, "HIFU will be widely used in treating tumors".
