Progressive thinkers

Dr Timothy Bryant, consultant interventional radiologist

UHS is the kind of place that encourages doctors to research and develop pioneering treatments. Such support was crucial to both myself and Dr Nigel Hacking when we introduced a revolutionary image-guided prostate treatment.

Many men are likely to suffer the consequences of an enlarged prostate later in life and it’s a particularly uncomfortable and unpleasant condition which can seriously damage quality of life. We wanted to find a way to improve the lives of patients without putting them through the risks associated with conventional surgery. We introduced a technique that allows us to treat the symptoms in a less invasive manner, by directly targeting and reducing the blood supply to the prostate causing it to shrink without cutting tissue away. It’s a relatively short procedure, at just one to two hours, performed under local anaesthetic using x-rays to guide tiny catheters into the prostate arteries in order to block the blood supply. Treating the prostate this way enables the patient to be back in the comfort of their home within four to six hours and doing activities of daily living the next day.

It was a proud moment when we introduced this new treatment and even more rewarding when we began to share it with colleagues in other trusts, providing valuable evidence for NICE with the aim of allowing the treatment to become more widely available in the UK.