Treatment Of Cancer With Ultrasound Is More Than Just Possible, It's Already Here

If Ivan had managed somehow not to develop brain cancer until 2026, his story might have read something like this.

Improvements in MRI Are Already Here

Ivan started having unusual symptoms that culminated in a gran mal seizure. He's taken to the hospital, where the doctor orders Molecular Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or an mMRI, a more advanced version of an MRI that can create an image of his brain at a cellular or even molecular level. A technique that was first implemented in 2006, mMRI uses non-toxic "dyes" for a much more detailed view of internal organs. Ivan's doctor tells him that he has a glioblastoma, the most advanced form of a glioma cancer of the brain, but not to worry, the tumor can be destroyed with focused ultrasound treatment without need for opening the skull, and when the tumor comes back, it can be treated just as easily again.

High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Treatment of Cancer Is Essentially Painless

Ivan is asked to change into a gown, and he is taken into the ultrasound therapy suite. He's given a light sedative, but he doesn't have general anesthesia, and he is placed into position with his back on a table.

Ivan's head is secured in a device called a hemispheric focused ultrasound brain transducer. Something like a gamma-knife, but not using radiation, this device transmits 1,000 or more intersecting beams of ultrasound energy through the scalp and skull. Only where do the beams intersect do they break up brain tissue. In an adjacent control room, the surgeon outlines the tumor, and programs the machine to destroy it. The treatment begins with Ivan awake, but calm, and Katya sitting next to him, holding his hand. In a few minutes, ultrasound has destroyed the tumor.

Targeted Chemotherapy Is on the Horizon

Ivan will still have to undergo chemotherapy, but this will be a very different form of chemotherapy than had been available just 10 years earlier. While he is still in the ultrasound suite, Ivan is given an IV of chemotherapy drugs that inactive because they are trapped inside nanoparticles. As the nanoparticles circulate to Ivan's brain, the doctor activates them with ultrasound so they release their payload of chemotherapy, but only in the area around the tumor where cancer cells may still be active. High concentrations of chemotherapy are delivered to cancer cells, but systemic side effects will be minimal.

Two hours after treatment has begun, Ivan is out of the ultrasound suite, and discharged to go home. He is back at work two days later. His symptoms go away for many months, but when they begin to return four years later, Ivan does not hesitate to call the doctor for a second treatment. Ivan lives to 90 years old, and the $25,000 cost of his cancer treatment does not interfere with his children's education or his retirement.

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Over 72,000 Tumor Patients Have Already Been Treated with Ultrasound

Just how realistic is this scenario?

Ultrasound treatment of tumors is already a reality. Over 22,000 women have had ultrasound ablation of uterine fibroids, and over 50,000 men have had ultrasound removal of prostate cancer tumors. There are currently nearly 250 research centers around the world conducting clinical trials of focused ultrasound for cancers of the breast, brain, liver, and pancreas. Insurance companies and national health ministries are perhaps a little slow to pay for the procedure, but focused ultrasound treatment is a therapy that is here and is here to stay.