A story pitched and facilitated by the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation was broadcast on the CBS Evening News on June 12, 2011.

Acknowledging that focused ultrasound could be one of the biggest medical advances since the scalpel, the report included interviews with uterine fibroid patient Stephanie Small and University of Virginia radiologist Alan Matsumoto, MD.

Commenting on future uses of focused ultrasound, Brad Wood, MD, of the NIH Center for Interventional Oncology, said "We will see a day in the coming five years where this treatment is playing a major role for the cancer patient."

Click here to view the report:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/12/eveningnews/main20070716.shtml

I recently attended the Society for Thermal Medicine's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA. Throughout the meeting it became abundantly clear that there is a rationale for clinical applications of mild hyperthermia -- especially with the significant number of phase III clinical trial data shown in an overview presentation given by Elizabeth Repasky, Ph.D. from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, as well as presentation of work by the leading clinical group from Munich of Prof. Dr. Rolf Issels, M.D. and Dr. Lars Lindner.  A randomized phase III clinical trial performed by Issels and Lindner was recently published in Lancet Oncology and showed a significant survival benefit when mild hyperthermia (heating to ~42 °C) is delivered in combination with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.  

So, you might ask, why should the FUS community be interested in mild hyperthermia? 

While it has been shown that mild hyperthermia provides a significant survival benefit when used in combination with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, most current devices are not capable of delivering a thermal dose consistently and reliability to the region of interest and/or require more invasive techniques for hyperthermia delivery or temperature monitoring. FUS can be used to non-invasively deliver mild hyperthermia to a large number of regions of the body and the temperature change can be monitored using magnetic resonance imaging thermometry in real time to assure homogeneous heating.  In fact, focused ultrasound might just be the solution to deliver hyperthermia for cancer therapy.  And having seen the data evidencing the potential for hyperthermia to improve effects of cancer therapy, I'm eager to see studies performed that allow us to directly determine the impact of FUS for hyperthermia.

The Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation has awarded a $232,808 research award to Wladyslaw M. Gedroyc, M.D. of St. Mary’s Hospital in London for a two-year randomized clinical trial comparing MR-guided focused ultrasound with radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of back pain caused by facet joint disease.

The clinical trial marks the next step in Gedroyc’s pioneering efforts to develop a noninvasive treatment for facet joint disease that provides more complete and longer lasting pain relief than current therapies. He and his team at St. Mary’s Hospital have already conducted a non-randomized pilot clinical trial in which MR-guided focused ultrasound was used to treat 17 patients suffering from extreme back pain caused by facet joint osteoarthritis. Post-treatment assessments show the technology is safe and effective. Click here to read full story and watch video interview.

The call for abstracts opened on May 30 and will close on July 29 for the 1st European Symposium on MR-guided Focused Ultrasound Therapy. Organized by the Department of Radiology of the University of Rome La Sapienza, the symposium will be held September 22 and 23, 2011 in Rome.

Directed to physicians of various sub-specialties, physicists and basic scientists throughout the European Community, the symposium seeks to bridge the gap between basic research and clinical activity. Topics being covered by its faculty of global thought leaders and researchers include: technology, brain, breast, bone tumors, liver, pancreas, prostate, uterine fibroids, targeted drug delivery. The symposium will conclude with an oncology round.

Serving as Symposium Presidents are Roberto Passariello M.D., Professor of Radiology and Chairman, Department of Radiology at Sapienza University of Rome and Neal F. Kassell, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia and Founder of Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation, which is a conference sponsor.

In addition to Passarriello, the symposium organizing committee consists of two other members of Sapienza's Radiology Department: Carlo Catalano, M.D., Vice Chair and Head of CT and MR Sections and Alessandro Napoli, M.D., Ph.D., Head of MR-guided FUS Unit.

Complete information about the symposium >