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 extravascular hematomas. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the brain without damaging surrounding normal tissue.
How it Works
Where the beams converge, the focused ultrasound produces histotripsy (mechanical destruction) of the fibers within the hematoma. This enables the hematoma to be aspirated with fine needle instead of requiring a surgical removal. While early results are promising, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available.
Advantages
The primary options for treatment of hematomas include medication 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. Focused ultrasound can also reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue, and it can be repeated, if necessary.
Clinical Trials
At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of extravascular hematomas.
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/.
Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement
Focused ultrasound treatment for extravascular hematomas is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies.
Notable Papers
Ri J, Xu L, Shang L, Yue X, Greenwald SE, Mohammed M, Shen L. Investigation of Thrombolysis and Safety of Stand-Alone High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy in Partially Occluded Ex-Vivo Animal Models. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2025 Jul 21:S0301-5629(25)00216-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2025.06.017. PMID: 40695687
Ponomarchuk EM, Rosnitskiy PB, Tsysar SA, Khokhlova TD, Karzova MM, Kvashennikova AV, Tumanova KD, Kadrev AV, Buravkov SV, Trakhtman PE, Starostin NN, Sapozhnikov OA, Khokhlova VA. Elastic Properties of Aging Human Hematoma Model In Vitro and Its Susceptibility to Histotripsy Liquefaction. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2024 Jun;50(6):927-938. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2024.02.019. Epub 2024 Mar 20. PMID: 38514363
Tam A, Contreras K, Fall F, Maxwell A, Liu JB, Forsberg F, Vlaisavljevich E, Goldberg A, Xiao TS, Kuon Yeng E C, Eisenbrey JR, Koenig G. Development of a contrast-enhanced ultrasound guided high intensity focused ultrasound system for coagulation of liver parenchyma. J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2024 May 23. doi: 10.1097/TA.0000000000004397. PMID: 38750641
Yang MY, Tu YF, Feng KK, Yin MD, Fang YF, Le JQ, Luo BY, Tan XR, Shao JW. A erythrocyte-platelet hybrid membrane coated biomimetic nanosystem based on ginsenosides and PFH combined with ultrasound for targeted delivery in thrombus therapy. Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces. 2023 Jul 18;229:113468. doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2023.113468. PMID: 37515961
Bautista KJB, Kim J, Xu Z, Jiang X, Dayton PA. Current Status of Sub-micron Cavitation-Enhancing Agents for Sonothrombolysis. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2023 May;49(5):1049-1057. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2023.01.018. Epub 2023 Mar 1. PMID: 36868959
Heo J, Park JH, Kim HJ, Pahk K, Pahk KJ. Sonothrombolysis with an acoustic net-assisted boiling histotripsy: A proof-of-concept study. Ultrason Sonochem. 2023 Jun;96:106435. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2023.106435. Epub 2023 May 8. PMID: 37178667
Click here for additional references from PubMed.