Focused ultrasound surgery re-invents cancer treatment

Technology originally used as sonar for submarines could be part of a revolutionary medical treatment, and the University of Virginia Medical Center will be among the pioneers in the new treatment method.
Medical use of ultrasound technology was discovered in 1950, but it proved ineffective because doctors couldn’t see what they were doing.

Now magnetic resonance has allowed for the advancement of guided focused ultrasound, a non-invasive method already used to treat one type of cancer. And the technology potentially could be used to treat a host of other forms of cancer along with other diseases.
UVa neurosurgeon Dr. Neal Kassell saw the potential for the treatment, so he helped to establish the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation in 2006. The foundation was created to raise funds to put the treatment on the fast track.
Kassell said he realized early on that the treatment “could have a global impact.”

The MR guided focused ultrasound technology is currently FDA approved to treat uterine fibroids — muscular tumors that grow in the uterus and can require hysterectomies.
Clinical trials in several countries, including the United States, are under way for treatment of numerous forms of cancer — metastatic bone tumors, along with breast and brain cancer, for instance. Treatment for other diseases, such as Parkinson’s, also will be investigated.
“The whole field is exploding,” Kassell said.
Rolf Taylor, spokesman for the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation, also touted the technology’s potential.
“There are so many questions that need to be answered,” said Taylor. “For us, this is a very exciting event.”
The foundation has pledged $3.1 million toward the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Center, which will be housed in a modular facility near the hospital. The state has added $4 million in funding. The cost of the center is expected to exceed $8 million.
The center, one of three that will be established in the United States over the next two years, will specialize in research, training and care, according to Taylor.

He said the center should open in the fall.
The technology uses magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound to treat tumors, with no need for incisions or anesthetic. The MRI allows doctors to see the interior of a patient’s anatomy while the “high-frequency sound beams … pass through healthy tissue harmlessly,” according to the foundation. The ultrasound beams converge and generate enough heat to destroy tumors.
The treatment has the potential to make lethal forms of cancer a chronic and manageable disease, according to Taylor.
Kassell said there is still much that needs to be studied.

“We’re really early,” he said.
Still, he has high hopes.
“This has been described as the best kept secret in medicine,” Kassell said. “It is my belief, and I could be wrong … it could be the most important therapeutic technology since the invention of the scalpel.”