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Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

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Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#31

Post by ramoz »

darkerside wrote: post #2

Dumb question, but isn't there a risk of spreading cancer causing proteins throughout the body with this approach?

> Histotripsy generally seems to stimulate an immune response, helping the body attack cancer cells that weren’t targeted directly by ultrasound. The mechanical destruction of tumors likely leaves behind recognizable traces of cancer proteins that help the immune system learn to identify and destroy similar cells elsewhere in the body, explains Wood. Researchers are now exploring ways to pair histotripsy with immunotherapy to amplify that effect.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#33

Post by cowsandmilk »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #25
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #10

What are the chances that breaking up a tumor this way seeds cancer elsewhere in the body? 2024 meta analysis of seeding I didn't see ultrasound in there: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39605885/ Here is a study on AEs specifically from this type of ultrasound: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Quote: "Cavitation detaches cancer cells/emboli from the primary site and thereby releases th…

We simply won’t know until they do the inevitable phase2/3 RCTs. They will need to show that this method helps people survive longer or with better quality of life than the current standard of care.

HistoSonics has studies published with 50 patients. Their upcoming study with 5000 liver patients obviously will give more information, but we already have some.

And with that said, these studies are more relevant than the top of thread linking to a review from 2011 looking at papers from 2005-2006 for ultrasound cavitation causing metastases.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#34

Post by cowsandmilk »

pedalpete wrote: post #22
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #10

What are the chances that breaking up a tumor this way seeds cancer elsewhere in the body? 2024 meta analysis of seeding I didn't see ultrasound in there: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39605885/ Here is a study on AEs specifically from this type of ultrasound: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Quote: "Cavitation detaches cancer cells/emboli from the primary site and thereby releases th…

It seems they are initially focused on pancreatic cancer, which has a very low survival rate ~14% [1]. In theory, this may mean that metastisizing this tumour could destroy it in the pancreas, but allow the cells to spread to more treatable locations? 1 - https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/pancreatic-c...

?? HistoSonics first target was the liver, second was kidney. Pancreas is the third organ they’ve targeted.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#35

Post by chiph »

cogman10 wrote: post #16

Due to some family stuff, this is something I've been investigating. My oncologist has said "this will probably be standard care in a few years". The results and studies around this have been excellent. What this does better than pretty much anything else is it isolates the destruction of cells to just the target. The liver is a VERY "bleedy" organ. It has a ton of blood that flows through it which makes surgery extr…

I finished treatment for prostate cancer this summer. Most of my time in the x-ray machine was spent getting the alignment right. They'd take a CT scan, do some image analysis and other computations, then adjust the table some small amount before turning the beam on.

I'm curious how they do the alignment with the histotripsy machine. I would think that they could obviously do an ultrasound scan to get the gross alignment correct. But perhaps there is a CT scan afterwards that lets them make the fine alignment. It probably also helps that the liver is a much larger gland so aiming is less critical?

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#36

Post by cowsandmilk »

flir wrote: post #30
candiddevmike wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mechanical destruction of tumors likely leaves behind recognizable traces of cancer proteins that help the immune system learn to identify and destroy similar cells elsewhere in the body, explains Wood Seems a little too speculatively worded, IMO.

If it was true, couldn't you get the same effect by taking a biopsy, fragmenting the cells, and injecting them back in? Like a vaccination, in fact. Somebody must have studied that approach already.

Major damage tends to cause a much larger immune response than a vaccination. That said, they do have therapeutic cancer vaccines that present proteins from cancer (sometimes patient-specific) with adjuvants to help stimulate the immune response.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#37

Post by observationist »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #33
TaupeRanger wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We simply won’t know until they do the inevitable phase2/3 RCTs. They will need to show that this method helps people survive longer or with better quality of life than the current standard of care.

HistoSonics has studies published with 50 patients. Their upcoming study with 5000 liver patients obviously will give more information, but we already have some. And with that said, these studies are more relevant than the top of thread linking to a review from 2011 looking at papers from 2005-2006 for ultrasound cavitation causing metastases.

>>> ... the study found that removing the parachute prior to jumping led to a shocking increase in mortality among skydivers.

When there's a clear causal mechanism, additional research that doesn't propose a clear resolution to the underlying problem doesn't negate the clear causal mechanism. Releasing a bunch of loose cancer into the body is a clear causal mechanism, so unless you're filtering it or killing the loose cancer somehow, I'm not sure what those studies could tell you that overcomes the underlying problem. And until they address that problem, it's going to be limited to a quality of life type application - stopping the tumor from killing you now with the certainty of metastasis killing you later.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#38

Post by cogman10 »

chiph wrote: post #35
cogman10 wrote: post #16

Due to some family stuff, this is something I've been investigating. My oncologist has said "this will probably be standard care in a few years". The results and studies around this have been excellent. What this does better than pretty much anything else is it isolates the destruction of cells to just the target. The liver is a VERY "bleedy" organ. It has a ton of blood that flows through it which makes surgery extr…

I finished treatment for prostate cancer this summer. Most of my time in the x-ray machine was spent getting the alignment right. They'd take a CT scan, do some image analysis and other computations, then adjust the table some small amount before turning the beam on. I'm curious how they do the alignment with the histotripsy machine. I would think that they could obviously do an ultrasound scan to get the gross align…

I'm not sure how they do it exactly. I know just the nature of the machine is that it has a massive array of ultrasound emitters and sensors.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#39

Post by nradov »

observationist wrote: post #37
cowsandmilk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HistoSonics has studies published with 50 patients. Their upcoming study with 5000 liver patients obviously will give more information, but we already have some. And with that said, these studies are more relevant than the top of thread linking to a review from 2011 looking at papers from 2005-2006 for ultrasound cavitation causing metastases.

>>> ... the study found that removing the parachute prior to jumping led to a shocking increase in mortality among skydivers. When there's a clear causal mechanism, additional research that doesn't propose a clear resolution to the underlying problem doesn't negate the clear causal mechanism. Releasing a bunch of loose cancer into the body is a clear causal mechanism, so unless you're filtering it or killing the loos…

So what's the problem? The vast majority of cancer treatments seek only to put the condition into remission for a while. Realistically that's often all that can be done.

Re: Ultrasound Cancer Treatment: Sound Waves Fight Tumors

#40

Post by londons_explore »

flir wrote: post #30
candiddevmike wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mechanical destruction of tumors likely leaves behind recognizable traces of cancer proteins that help the immune system learn to identify and destroy similar cells elsewhere in the body, explains Wood Seems a little too speculatively worded, IMO.

If it was true, couldn't you get the same effect by taking a biopsy, fragmenting the cells, and injecting them back in? Like a vaccination, in fact. Somebody must have studied that approach already.

I assume the immune system probably already reacts to this in a specific way. For example, a major bruise has a lot of broken up cells, but doesn't warrant a big immune response.
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