Focused Ultrasound

They called it Medicine’s Best Kept Secret — at UCSF today.

You have probably seen ultrasound images of babies, but if you arrange an array of ultrasound transducers to focus to a point, they can manipulate cells and membranes like a magnifying glass focusing sunlight to a burning hot point. Focused ultrasound can burn tumor cells deep inside the body, without surgery. Or it can heat the cells enough to trigger the immune system. Or mechanically rend them apart. It can stimulate deep brain regions in a mm^3 voxel for a variety of mental health applications, like deep brain stimulation without the brain surgery. Or relax the blood-brain-barrier in a specific region. Or activate nanoparticle-conjugated-drugs to deliver psychedelic medicine to certain brain regions and not others to further elucidate their mechanism of action (e.g., can ketamine be therapeutic without disassociation?).

Most of the half million treatments so far have been for the removal of uterine fibroids, pancreatic cancer tumors and liver tumors — all without surgery and its collateral damage. It’s a bit like the Star Trek vision of medical care.

And one of Future Venture’s companies is working to advance the equipment used in these procedures, but they are still in stealth mode, so gosh, they are keeping it secret too.

Here is an overview of the various FUS applications and their state of development. And here is a list of 25 different mechanisms of action. And a CNN Report on the clinical trials for the use of FUS to treat essential tremor.