January 2017 Research Roundup

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This month, exciting research was published involving focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier to deliver drugs to metastatic brain tumors, treat a rare type of spinal bone cancer, and reduce eye pressure in glaucoma patients.


In a pre-clinical study, a Taiwanese group used focused ultrasound to increase the amount of a chemotherapy drug delivered across the blood-brain barrier to brain metastases. See Pulsed-wave low-dose ultrasound hyperthermia selectively enhances nanodrug delivery and improves antitumor efficacy for brain metastasis of breast cancer in Ultrasonics Sonochemistry.

Collaborators in Oxford, UK, present the outcomes from four cases and announce the start of a clinical trial in using focused ultrasound to treat sacral chordoma, a rare type of spinal bone cancer. See High-intensity focused ultrasonic ablation of sacral chordoma is feasible: a series of four cases and details of a national clinical trial in the British Journal of Neurosurgery.

Two glaucoma centers in Italy successfully treated 30 patients with focused ultrasound to reduce intraocular pressure using Eye Tech Care’s EyeOP1 device. See High-intensity focused ultrasound treatment in patients with refractory glaucoma in Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.