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 back pain, as a common cause is arthritis of the facet joints. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body with minimal damage to surrounding normal tissue.
How it Works
Where the beams converge, the ultrasound produces precise ablation (thermal destruction of tissue) enabling the nerves that carry painful signals from back arthritis to be treated without surgery.
Advantages
The primary treatment options for chronic low back pain caused by facet arthritis currently include medication, steroid injections, radiofrequency ablation of sensory nerves and invasive surgery.
For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. It can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue and is repeatable, if necessary.
Clinical Trials
A clinical trial in Wahington D.C. is treating complex patients including those with low back pain with focused ultrasound.
A clinical trial in the U.S. is treating patients for low back pain secondary to facet joint arthritis has completed enrollment.
A clinical trial in Germany is using MR guided focused ultrasound to treat patients with facet arthritis.
A clinical trial in Taiwan is looking at treating facet arthritis causing low back pain with focused ultrasound.
A clinical trial in Israel evaluating the safety and efficacy of a focused ultrasound device to treat back pain secondary to facet joint arthritis has completed enrollment.
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/.
See a list of laboratory research sites >
Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement
The Insightec magnetic resonance guided focused ultrasound system has been approved in Europe and Russia for the treatment of facetogenic back pain.
The FUSMobile system has been approved in Europe and Canada for the treatment of facetogenic back pain.
Notable Papers
Hoda W, Pandey K. The emerging role of fluoroscopy-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation in lumbar facet joint pain management. Korean J Anesthesiol. 2024 Dec 26. doi: 10.4097/kja.24724. PMID: 39722208
Tiegs-Heiden CA. MR-guided Focused Ultrasound for Musculoskeletal Applications. Magn Reson Imaging Clin N Am. 2024 Nov;32(4):641-650. doi: 10.1016/j.mric.2024.02.006. Epub 2024 Mar 23. PMID: 39322353
\Mahapatra S, Francois H, Weber-Levine C, Jiang K, Bhimreddy M, Boateng A, Davidar AD, Routkevitch D, Chhatre A, Manbachi A, Theodore N. Focused ultrasound for the treatment of facet joint pain: a systematic review. Neurosurg Focus. 2024 Sep 1;57(3):E9. doi: 10.3171/2024.6.FOCUS24249. PMID: 39217639
Karri J, Cohen SP. High-intensity focused ultrasound as the savior for lumbar facet joint neurotomy: fact, fad, or fiction? Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2024 May 22:rapm-2024-105515. doi: 10.1136/rapm-2024-105515. PMID: 38724269
Gofeld M, Smith KJ, Bhatia A, Djuric V, Leblang S, Rebhun N, Aginsky R, Miller E, Skoglind B, Hananel A. Fluoroscopy-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound neurotomy of the lumbar zygapophyseal joints: a prospective, open-label study. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2024 Apr 5:rapm-2024-105345. doi: 10.1136/rapm-2024-105345. PMID: 38580339
Click here for additional references from PubMed.