Ultrasound Shows Promise as surgery-Free Cancer Treatment, Boosting Immunotherapy Efficacy
Breaking News: Researchers are exploring ultrasound as a powerful, non-invasive tool to enhance cancer treatment, potentially revolutionizing how doctors combat the disease without relying on traditional surgery. Early findings suggest ultrasound can make tumors more susceptible to both radiation and, crucially, the body’s own immune system.
The emerging approach centers on focused ultrasound’s ability to heat and disrupt tumor tissue. This disruption appears to increase the visibility of cancer cells to immune defenses, according to researchers like Price, whose center focuses on combining ultrasound with immunotherapy.
“as focused ultrasound heats and damages tumours, it truly seems to make these tissues more visible to the immune system,” Price stated.
This synergy with immunotherapy – a treatment designed to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer - is especially promising. Cancer cells often evade detection, but ultrasound may help expose them.Researchers are also investigating whether ultrasound can amplify the effects of radiation therapy, potentially allowing for lower, less damaging doses while maintaining treatment effectiveness, according to Sharma. “If its effects can be enhanced thanks to ultrasound-stimulated microbubbles, she says, doctors could theoretically use lower doses to achieve the same treatment effects with fewer devastating side effects.”
Currently, treating metastatic cancer - where the disease has spread throughout the body – remains a significant challenge.Removing individual tumors is insufficient in these cases. Though, the ”holy grail” of this research, Price explains, is to use ultrasound to break apart a single tumor, allowing the immune system to recognize its characteristics and launch a “system-wide attack against cancerous cells” in other parts of the body.
While still theoretical and requiring clinical trials, Price envisions a future where treating just one tumor could effectively address multiple sites of cancer: “doctors could ‘treat 10, 15, 20 tumours just by treating one tumour'”.
