Top Universities Join Forces to Launch First U.S. Based HIFU Patient Registry for Prostate Treatment
With the goal of collecting high quality clinical data on hundreds of patients, a consortium of renowned medical institutions are introducing the FoR-UsA Registry, also known as the Focal Robotic Ultrasound Ablation Registry. The new database will track baseline and follow-up information on patients undergoing partial-gland ablation of the prostate using the Ablatherm® Robotic High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) device, manufactured by EDAP TMS.
Participating organizations include the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Weil Cornell-Houston Methodist Hospital, Duke University and the University of Southern California.
The FoR-UsA Registry is the first in the US that specifically collects data on patients who have had HIFU focal therapy for prostate tissue ablation, giving urologists around the US greater access to short and long term HIFU outcomes. The registry also holds the potential for the FDA, which cleared HIFU for prostate tissue ablation in 2015, to re-evaluate the technology in the future for a prostate cancer indication. Likewise, health insurance reimbursements on a wider scale are also possible with a registry documenting HIFU data from North American patients.
“Our goal is to have one comprehensive focal therapy HIFU registry in the US that will enable us to better define the role of HIFU in the spectrum of treatment modalities for patients with prostate conditions,” said Dipen Parekh, M.D., chairman and professor of the Department of Urology at the University of Miami, who is the principal investigator for the FoR-UsA Registry.