Focused Ultrasound Therapy
Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue.
How it Works
The mechanism of action that is being studied is thermal ablation of the AVM, which has been done on the extremity of a patient. There is also some preclinical work looking at using a mechanical (non-thermal) ablation on the malformation.
Advantages
The primary options for treatment of AVMs includes surgery although some less invasive medicines or procedures can be chosen if the lesion is in a poor surgical location. For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as like surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. Focused ultrasound can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue, and it can be repeated, if necessary.
Clinical Trials
There is a clinical trial using the Sonoblate system treating incompetent extremity veins in humans.
The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.
Notable Papers
Li L, Wang T, Xu D. A case of high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy for uterine arteriovenous fistula. Asian J Surg. 2023 Jul 5:S1015-9584(23)00947-8. doi: 10.1016/j.asjsur.2023.06.087. PMID: 37419821
Calik J, Zawada T, Bove T. Treatment of superficial benign vascular tumors by high intensity focused ultrasound: Observations in two illustrative cases. J Cosmet Dermatol. 2022 Aug;21(8):3371-3379. doi: 10.1111/jocd.14682. Epub 2021 Dec 17.
Jones J, Bolding M, Ullman H, Kaneko N, Tateshima S. Focused Ultrasound Ablation of an Arteriovenous Malformation Model. Front Neurol. 2021 Jun 3;12:671380. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2021.671380. eCollection 2021.
Liu JL, Lin XL, Zhou H, Pan JH, Liu GH, Shuai HL, Xin-Luo. Ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound as pretreatment before surgical excision for fertility-preserving management of uterine arteriovenous malformation. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2019 Jul 22. pii: S0301-2115(19)30357-4. doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2019.07.030.
Click here for additional references from PubMed.