Ultrasound Technology Curing Cancer

In an article published by Michigan Engineering, researchers explain a newfound

technique for liver tumor treatment, developed at the University of Michigan. The article

elaborates on how the FDA has just recently approved the usage of this technology, called

histotripsy, and how this may pose lots of new opportunities in the face of liver disease. Turning

away from common treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and other invasive

procedures, histotripsy has incited hope for doctors, families, and patients who deal with liver

disease, tumors, cancer and more.

Histotripsy is the use of sound waves to treat the human liver by breaking down tumors.

This research began in 2009 and has sought to successfully destroy targeted and damaged liver

tissue. In short, the sound waves produced by this technology work by forming microtubules

within the tumor, wherein the force of this formation physically rips the tumor apart, and kills its

cells. This technology presents far more target specificity compared to chemotherapy and

radiation, where even the “good” cells get destroyed too. The “high energy ultrasound” produced

by this technology is directly projected only towards regions of infection and tumor tissue. This

development was tested on rats and the results were positive in more ways than one. In the first

trial, even when only about 50%-70% of the tumor’s mass was broken down within the rodent,

results revealed that the organism’s immune system was able to fight the rest of the tumor cells

remaining on its own. This shows compelling evidence that the immune system may have the

potential to be able to independently identify and fight cancerous and diseased liver cells,

introducing the idea of a “natural immune response to the cancer”, mimicking how antigens

function. This is yet another advantage of histotripsy in comparison to chemotherapy, where

antigens are killed in the process.

Overall, although this treatment is still very much in its preliminary stages, there is a lot

of opportunity and hope to emerge from its findings. While chemotherapy and radiation are

extremely extensive and destroy everything in the process of treatment, histotripsy may provide

relief to many patients in that the rest of their body will not be uprooted in the pursuit of

treatment. This mechanism also seems to be more efficient compared to chemotherapy in terms

of “drug compatibility’. This type of treatment is unprecedented, but uses a similar mechanism as

ultrasounds used for seeing babies in the womb, which may be reassuring to many patients and

could make the mechanism easier to understand. Histotripsy could be paving the way for the

treatment of different kinds of tumors, and not just exclusive to the liver.

Haley Sampson (6)

Michigan Engineering, “Tumor-destroying Soundwaves Receive FDA Approval for Liver

Treatment in Humans”, Jim Lynch, Oct 9, 2023.