Focused Beam Ultrasonic

Curious to know if there has been any talk or experience here about HIFU
(high intensity focused ultrasound) (sometimes FUS or HIFUS)focused beam
ultrasonic cancer treatment as an alternative to focused radiation
treatment. As in focused radiation treatment several energy sources
direct sonic energy to a tumor, burning it off.

I spotted info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIFU

Steve J.

Smitty88 wrote:
> Curious to know if there has been any talk or experience here about HIFU
> (high intensity focused ultrasound) (sometimes FUS or HIFUS)focused beam
> ultrasonic cancer treatment as an alternative to focused radiation
> treatment. As in focused radiation treatment several energy sources
> direct sonic energy to a tumor, burning it off.
>
> I spotted info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIFU
>
> Steve J.

Someone asked about it a while ago, and I Googled it. That's all I know.
They are doing it in China, and a company is recruiting patients in the UK.

Obviously, being focussed it is only good for solid tumours in soft
tissue, basically as an alternative to surgery. But unlike surgery
there is no easy way of telling whether everything has been removed, you
can't get 'clean margins'.

So as yet its application in breast cancer is pretty limited, being not
as safe as surgery for a primary tumour, and not suitable for the
commonest mets: in bone, that will throw the focus.

It might be applicable for some of the other mets, eg liver, but the
benefits are limited as removal of the major metastasis often just
encourages the growth of others, so chemotherapy is then a better option
as it attacks the micro-metastases first. Maybe a combination of the
two might sometimes be useful.


Tim