#FOCUSED ULTRASOUND HOW TO#
#FOCUSED ULTRASOUND TRIAL#

While opening the blood-brain barrier with focused ultrasound has been an area of interest for years, researchers have continued to investigate how to do it safely and under controlled parameters.įocused ultrasound is a non-invasive technology that focuses multiple beams of ultrasound on a target deep within the body. Blood-Brain Barrier: A Blockade to Treatment The dose has been shown to increase by up to 8-fold in pre-clinical studies. The tumor will first be targeted by focused ultrasound to achieve blood-brain barrier opening after intravenous administration of microbubbles and subsequently perform intravenous administration of panobinostat that can reach the tumor at a higher dose than without opening the blood-brain barrier. The entire session per patient lasts about 20 to 30 minutes and occurs once a week over three weeks. Konofagou’s non-invasive focused ultrasound technology.

#FOCUSED ULTRASOUND TRIAL#

The phase 1 trial in DIPG, open now at Columbia and co-funded by the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, will test the delivery of chemotherapy in pediatric cancer patients via the blood-brain barrier using Dr. Prediction of transcranial wave propagation and formation of focal spot in the brain prior to FUS application using CT scans of the subject: wave intensity map overplayed onto the CT scan (left) and thresholded map showing the focal spot in the brain (right). There have been clinical studies investigating the effectiveness of using focused ultrasound to treat prostate and metastatic lesions to the bone (bone mets) but penetrating the blood-brain barrier with this technology has remained a hurdle in its potential to treat brain cancer, and it has not yet been extensively studied in pediatric brain cancer. “If we can safely open the blood-brain barrier with focused ultrasound, we can potentially use other medicines and lower concentrations of medicines in a very targeted way, while also reducing toxicity level overall for the patient undergoing therapy.” Zacharoulis, a member of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) who specializes in pediatric neuro-oncology and a lead investigator of the trial. “This has the potential for completely changing how we approach treatment for brain tumors,” says Dr. The blood-brain barrier also limits the ability of systemic medications like chemotherapy from reaching brain tumors, making it a key challenge in effectively delivering therapies for brain tumors. The new technique works to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier, a natural protective layer in our brain, that blocks pathogens, bacteria, viruses, and other detrimental microoganisms circulating in the bloodstream from entering the central nervous system.

In a new clinical trial, oncologists Stergios Zacharoulis, MD, professor of pediatrics at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, and Cheng-Chia Wu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology, are using a focused ultrasound technique developed by Elisa Konofagou, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia Engineering to more effectively and safely deliver chemotherapy for pediatric patients with an aggressive type of brain cancer, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Ultrasound is typically synonymous with prenatal care, but soon an emerging platform called focused ultrasound could treat cancer.

Focused ultrasound