HIFU Technology Enables Revolutionary New Personalized Treatments for Musculoskeletal Diseases

Research into Magnetic-Resonance-guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (MRgHIFU) is leading to new treatments for cancer, bone metastases, osteoid osteomas, and desmoid tumors.

HIFU tools have the potential to dramatically improve patient care in combination with existing treatments and therapies. HIFU treatments could be used after surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy, for example, in case of disease recurrence. HIFU can be used to precisely target and ablate tumors, and has significantly less inherent risks, and toxicities than other existing treatment options. HIFU is safer and more precise that existing treatments because it is noninvasive, affects only the immediate area of the body being treated, and does not use ionizing radiation.

Dr. Matthew Bucknor, assistant professor, Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, at the University of California in San Fransisco (UCSF; San Fransisco, USA) specializes in research into new HIFU treatments.

Dr. Bucknor, said, "The HIFU machine creates sound waves and focuses them at a single point. It’s similar to the idea of a magnifying glass concentrating the sun’s light. That point is about the size of a pea. The tissue becomes extremely hot (65–85 °C) and ablates or burns the tumor. HIFU allows us to make many precise adjustments to individualize treatment more than we’ve been able to before. We can change how much power we're putting into the sound waves. We can change the size of the focus. We can change exactly where the focus is within the tumor. Each technical adjustment personalizes the treatment to get the best results for the patient.”

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