Novel Technologies and Applications of Focused Ultrasound (FUS)

Focused ultrasound (FUS/HIFU) relies on ablation of pathological tissues, by delivering sufficiently high level of acoustic energy in situ into the human body. Magnetic Resonance guided FUS (MRgFUS/HIFU) and Ultrasound guided (USgFUS/HIFU) are image guided techniques combined with therapeutic FUS for monitoring purposes. Clinical applications FUS/HIFU gained CE and FDA approvals for the treatment of various benign and malignant lesions in the last two decades. Current technical limitations of ultrasound guided and MRI guided Focused Ultrasound are related to challenges of ablating moving organs (Liver and Kidney). An outlook to possible new applications will be provided. Ultrasound guided focused ultrasound supported by robotic positioning has been realized for the first time funded by the European grant FUTURA. Two ABB arms are coordinated through specially developed software algorithms and positioning control is provided by Kinect and optical navigation. New applications using to KUKA robot arms including wireless ultrasound devices are currently being developed at ICCAS in Leipzig. Support of radiation therapy through FUS and HiFU has been developed in Leipzig and Dresden (D) funded by a large grant from the German Ministry of science. Preliminary results of sonication of glioblastoma cells will be presented. The work includes the development of PET MRI compatible focused ultrasound (Fraunhofer IBMT) positioned by a PET MR compatible robot arm. A novel multiparameter, multiplatform and multimodality Focused Ultrasound System 3MP-FUS has been developed in collaboration with IBMT Fraunhofer, Germany, funded by MRInstruments. Inc. MN, USA. I allows applications ranging from low intensity focused ultrasound for Neuromodulation, blood brain barrier opening FUS RT and FUS mediated targeted drug delivery to focal ablation support the treatment of cancer to a larger extend.