October 18, 2023 – The FDA has approved a way that uses sound waves to focus on liver tumors, in response to the University of Michigan, where it was developed.
The technique – called histotripsy – could possibly be an alternative choice to surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, which frequently have unwanted effects, the university said in an announcement Press release.
“A human trial, ongoing since 2021 at the UM Rogel Cancer Center and other sites, has treated patients with primary and metastatic liver tumors using histotripsy and demonstrated that the technology is capable of meeting the primary efficacy and safety goals of the tests,” it said within the press release.
The technique uses targeted ultrasound waves to form microbubbles inside a tumor, the press release says. “The forces created when these bubbles form and collapse cause the mass to break apart, killing tumor cells and leaving debris for the immune system to clear.”
Histotripsy is less complicated to regulate to make sure it's hitting the tumor relatively than healthy tissue, unlike radiation, which affects all the things in its path.
The company HistoSonics can now sell its histotripsy delivery platform for liver treatments to hospitals. The company relies in Minneapolis. The state-of-the-art research and development is positioned in Ann Arbor, MI.
“Histotripsy is an exciting new technology that, although in early stages of clinical use, may provide a non-invasive treatment option for patients with liver cancer. “Hopefully it can be combined with systemic therapies to achieve a synergistic therapeutic effect,” said Mishal Mendiratta-Lala, MD, professor of radiology at Michigan Medicine and principal investigator of the study on the university.
In addition, two previous studies in rats suggest that the immune system may learn to acknowledge cancer cells as a threat, attack the unique tumor and activate an immune response to the cancer, the university said.
However, cancer patients shouldn't expect to must stop receiving chemotherapy and radiation immediately. The device is simply approved to be used in liver cancer patients, and its limited availability and high price — about $12,500 per treatment — may lead doctors to stop prescribing it to patients. DailyMail.com reported.