Gary Onik, M.D. and Karen Barrie, M.S.
Thousands of prostate cancer patients will benefit from The Male Lumpectomy: A Rational New Approach to Prostate Cancer Treatment by Dr. Gary Onik and Karen Barrie. This singular book explains how his groundbreaking technique offers maximum cancer control with minimum side effects. The easy-to-understand, illustrated text explains how Onik’s process is advancing prostate cancer treatment just as breast lumpectomy improved quality of life for breast cancer patients. The authority of other experts underscores Onik’s work and research. Quotes from prostate cancer survivors add a personal tone. Logical points are highlighted throughout, and chapter summaries use fresh examples to reinforce each theme. This book makes a compelling case for The Male Lumpectomy, offering prostate cancer patients new hope.
Gary Onik, M.D. is known to many as The Father Of Contemporary Cryosurgery. He helped develop today’s technologically advanced cryotherapy, or freezing, as a prostate cancer treatment. Cryotherapy can be targeted to treat only those parts of the prostate believed to contain cancer. Onik’s “Male Lumpectomy” offers new hope, providing maximum cancer control and preserving sexual potency.
Dr. Onik is the Director of Surgical Imaging at Celebration Health/Florida Hospital in Orlando. He has taught medicine at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and Florida, as well as the Medical College of Pennsylvania. In March 2004 his study of focal cryoablation was awarded top honors at a national radiology society conference.
The wish for a middle ground
When someone comes up with a successful but less toxic prostate cancer treatment, men with this disease will want to know about it just as women with breast cancer did. Physicians are working to improve current therapies. Patrick Walsh, M.D. created a way to spare erectile nerves for qualified RP patients, making it less ominous for men concerned about their sex lives. Laparoscopy made it less invasive and shortened recovery time. 3-D conformal beam radiation and other new delivery systems focus radiation better. Cryotherapy is safer and faster then ever. But no existing total gland local treatment offers a satisfying middle ground because the trade-offs are still costly.
Male Lumpectomy resolves the dilemma
Prostate cancer patients need a happy medium that destroys just the cancer without jeopardizing quality of life. A therapeutic middle ground must be victorious over prostate cancer and also reduce the chances of potentially negative consequences.
We have developed a procedure that will allow thousands of men to have a safe, effective and less toxic treatment. It is the Male Lumpectomy, a tailored application of cryotherapy. It is the first true middle ground.
So far you have seen that:
- No one knows the ideal window for local gland removal or destruction.
- A total gland treatment that destroys all of the cancer puts lifestyle at risk.
- A systemic treatment that destroys none of the cancer puts lifespan at risk.
- An ideal middle ground would meet two standards: kill cancer, preserve lifestyle.
- Doctors want this just as much as patients do.
- We have developed the Male Lumpectomy to offer men a middle ground.
Men’s Voices
[I attempted] to find a treatment that would not be dangerous to my health, and had a good possibility of either a cure for the disease, or a long remission. (DM, Michigan)
The bottom line is that if I knew what my particular situation was going to turn into, I would not have chosen radical prostatectomy. I followed the statistics forgetting that I was a lousy gambler. Any decision is a gamble, but the next time I hear a white coat refer to the ‘gold standard,’ I’m going to dump several boxes of printouts on his head. (Anon.)
I was seeded in ‘99. I still have bowel urgency somewhat frequently so I make sure I’m close to a bathroom or I keep paper with me. (Anon.)
First they put a tube up your penis. Then they punch a hole in your bladder. Next they stick a camera up your behind. Under your scrotum there’s a very soft area. They put a little slit in it and insert a thin probe. They line up the probe with the cancer cells, guided by the camera. Then they turn on the gas in the probe to freeze the cancer and that’s all there is to cryo. (GN, Scottsdale
