Sound Technology Proves Effective Against Targeting Tumors in a Study

Histotripsy is a non-invasive procedure that uses focused ultrasound to target and destroy tissue. It works by mechanically liquifying the targeted tissue. There’s hope that it could be a new tool in the fight against cancer, and a recent study demonstrates its potential.

A team from the University of Michigan tested histotripsy in rats by targeting liver tumors. They found that the treatment broke down tumors, killed cancer cells, and boosted immune response to prevent further spread. The findings, published in the journal Cancers, may ultimately prove beneficial to human cancer patients, too.

Tejaswi Worlikar, first author and biomedical engineering doctoral student, says, “Histotripsy is a promising option that can overcome the limitations of currently available ablation modalities and provide safe and effective noninvasive liver tumor ablation. We hope that our learnings from this study will motivate future preclinical and clinical histotripsy investigations toward the ultimate goal of clinical adoption of histotripsy treatment for liver cancer patients.”

So how does the ultrasound technology move from producing images to targeting tumors?

Zhen Xu, study co-author and professor of biomedical engineering at U-M, explains, “Our transducer, designed and built at U-M, delivers high amplitude microsecond-length ultrasound pulses—acoustic cavitation—to focus on the tumor specifically to break it up. Traditional ultrasound devices use lower amplitude pulses for imaging.”

When histotripsy was used against rats with liver tumors, the team found that 50% to 75% of the tumor being destroyed allowed the rats’ immune systems to clear out the rest. There was also no evidence of recurrence or spread in more than 80% of the subjects. This came as the team targeted a portion of each tumor, as in many cases, an entire tumor can’t be targeted due to its size, location, or stage. The goal was to see how histotripsy worked in less-than-ideal conditions against these liver tumors.

Xu says, “Even if we don’t target the entire tumor, we can still cause the tumor to regress and also reduce the risk of future metastasis.”

The team notes that this treatment is currently being tested in a human trial with liver cancer patients in the U.S. and Europe.

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