Focused Sound Energy Holds Promise For Treating Cancer, Alzheimer's and Other Diseases (theconversation.com) 11
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Conversation: Sound waves at frequencies above the threshold for human hearing are routinely used in medical care. Also known as ultrasound, these sound waves can help clinicians diagnose and monitor disease, and can also provide first glimpses of your newest family members. And now, patients with conditions ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's may soon benefit from recent advances in this technology.
I am a biomedical engineer who studies how focused ultrasound -- the concentration of sound energy into a specific volume -- can be fine-tuned to treat various conditions. Over the past few years, this technology has seen significant growth and use in the clinic. And researchers continue to discover new ways to use focused ultrasound to treat disease. [...] Research on focused ultrasound has primarily focused on the most devastating and prevalent diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. However, I believe that further developments in, and increased use of, focused ultrasound in the clinic will eventually benefit patients with rare diseases.
One rare disease of particular interest for my lab is cerebral cavernous malformation, or CCM. CCMs are lesions in the brain that occur when the cells that make up blood vessels undergo uncontrolled growth. While uncommon, when these lesions grow and hemorrhage, they can cause debilitating neurological symptoms. The most common treatment for CCM is surgical removal of the brain lesions; however, some CCMs are located in brain areas that are difficult to access, creating a risk of side effects. Radiation is another treatment option, but it, too, can lead to serious adverse effects.
We found that using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier can improve drug delivery to CCMs. Additionally, we also observed that focused ultrasound treatment itself could stop CCMs from growing in mice, even without administering a drug. While we don't yet understand how focused ultrasound is stabilizing CCMs, abundant research on the safety of using this technique in patients treated for other conditions has allowed neurosurgeons to begin designing clinical trials testing the use of this technique on people with CCM. With further research and advancements, I am hopeful that focused ultrasound can become a viable treatment option for many devastating rare diseases.
I am a biomedical engineer who studies how focused ultrasound -- the concentration of sound energy into a specific volume -- can be fine-tuned to treat various conditions. Over the past few years, this technology has seen significant growth and use in the clinic. And researchers continue to discover new ways to use focused ultrasound to treat disease. [...] Research on focused ultrasound has primarily focused on the most devastating and prevalent diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. However, I believe that further developments in, and increased use of, focused ultrasound in the clinic will eventually benefit patients with rare diseases.
One rare disease of particular interest for my lab is cerebral cavernous malformation, or CCM. CCMs are lesions in the brain that occur when the cells that make up blood vessels undergo uncontrolled growth. While uncommon, when these lesions grow and hemorrhage, they can cause debilitating neurological symptoms. The most common treatment for CCM is surgical removal of the brain lesions; however, some CCMs are located in brain areas that are difficult to access, creating a risk of side effects. Radiation is another treatment option, but it, too, can lead to serious adverse effects.
We found that using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier can improve drug delivery to CCMs. Additionally, we also observed that focused ultrasound treatment itself could stop CCMs from growing in mice, even without administering a drug. While we don't yet understand how focused ultrasound is stabilizing CCMs, abundant research on the safety of using this technique in patients treated for other conditions has allowed neurosurgeons to begin designing clinical trials testing the use of this technique on people with CCM. With further research and advancements, I am hopeful that focused ultrasound can become a viable treatment option for many devastating rare diseases.
An added benefit: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:An added benefit: (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultrasound treatment has been used for decades to shatter kidney stones so they pass more easily in a process called Shock Wave Lithotripsy. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.or... [hopkinsmedicine.org]
Using focused ultrasound through the cranial bone is something I had not heard of before. I imagine precise mapping using ultrasound imaging to map how the ultrasound waves are refracted through the uneven bone structure would be important.
Re: An added benefit: (Score:3)
Unless your brain is already mush after prolonged exposure to social media, in which case one can proceed immediately without the wave reflection modelling stage.
Re: (Score:2)
Saw a talk on focused ultrasound. It's amazing. (Score:1)
There was a plenary lecture on this at the Euronoise 2025 conference back in June. A group of researchers in Spain were using MRI scans and simulation tools to map the skull and internal structures so they could 3D print a 'lens' that could focus the sound waves precisely at the spot needed while accounting for refraction/reflection.
Dr. Noé Jiménez: Instituto de Instrumentación para Imagen Molecular (i3M) - Spanish Research Council (CSIC)
Lecture title: Sculpting sound fields with acoustic hol
Muad'dib (Score:3)
"Some thoughts have a certain sound, that being equivalent to a form. Through sound and motion, you will be able to ... "
Fix poorly humans. Cool.
Was wondering about this (Score:2)
I saw an ad for this in the hospital elevator I had a physical at recently and was surprised I had never seen mention of it here. Two days later...
One of the reasons I love /. still. I am actually pretty curious about sound treatments-- from infrasound to audible to ultrasound. It had seemed like there was more study about it a decade or two back.
This is there since 80s (Score:2)
I attended a seminar at my university way back in mid 80s and this was discussed. Ultrasound Hyperthermia as it was called then. I even remember the professor name, it was Lele. Don't remember his university affiliation, so may be hard to do Google search. He presented several successful case studies as well. Maybe, it didn't work as well and was abandoned at that time and with the advancement of AI, software, and better hardware, it can do better job today. The main idea was same. Cancer cells at a faster
Re:This is there since 80s (Score:4, Interesting)
I had tried in the pass unsuccessfully to search on this. Tried again today and found this on Google AI:
"Professor Padmakar P. Lele was a pioneer in the use of ultrasound for cancer hyperthermia, particularly with his work on scanned, intensity-modulated, focused ultrasound (SIMFU) systems in the 1980s. His research focused on using focused ultrasound to noninvasively heat and destroy tumors, with a goal of heating tumors to \(43^{\circ }C\) with minimal damage to surrounding tissue. His work laid the foundation for modern ultrasound hyperthermia techniques, which are still used today as a treatment for some cancers, often in combination with radiation and chemotherap"
Royal Rife (Score:2)
Sound similar to Royal Rifes claim he could resonate cancer cells to death using modulated RF.