Prostate Cancer Fight Adds Experimental Treatment to Arsenal

The man on the operating table is 50, fit and otherwise healthy. Under the care of a different doctor, he might be waking up without a prostate. But today, inside a brightly lit English operating room at Parkside Hospital in Wimbledon, surgeon Hashim Ahmed has other plans.

The patient, under general anesthesia, lies still, legs suspended in stirrups—an undignified posture, but necessary for what comes next. Ahmed, chair of urology at Imperial College London, consults an ultrasound screen to guide a probe into place alongside the patient’s walnut-size prostate. The tumor is small, just 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) across, but ...