Cerebral Palsy: First-in-the-World Clinical Trial of Focused Ultrasound

Published:

Key Points

  • Researchers at Children’s National Hospital have begun a clinical trial investigating the safety of using focused ultrasound to address the symptoms of cerebral palsy.
  • In January, the team treated the first participant in this Foundation-funded study. 
Children’s National Hospital logo.

A team of researchers at Children’s National Hospital (CNH) in Washington, DC, has begun a clinical trial investigating the safety of using focused ultrasound to address the symptoms of cerebral palsy. This clinical trial, which is funded by the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, is the first of its kind in the world.  

In all, 10 pediatric and young adult participants between the ages of 8 and 22 years will be enrolled in the clinical trial. Researchers are using Insightec’s Exablate Neuro focused ultrasound device to noninvasively create unilateral or bilateral lesions in a part of the brain called the globus pallidus in patients with treatment-refractory secondary dystonia due to dyskinetic cerebral palsy. The study is being led by Chima Oluigbo, MD, a pediatric neurosurgeon at CNH and Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology, and Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine. 

In January, the CNH team treated the first participant in the study. The 22-year-old who was treated has a long history at CNH. In fact, he first became a patient at CNH when he was only 4 years old (in 2006) when he started working with the physical medicine and rehabilitation team to help him with his muscle hypertonia management and other concerns. Unfortunately, his muscle hypertonia symptoms progressed and were uncontrolled by oral medications, making him a candidate for this trial. 

The team will continue to monitor the patient’s quality of life as well as the therapy’s impact on his motor development, pain perception, speech, memory, attention, and cognition over the next two years.  

“We hope that the trial will help us find results that lead to treatments that can reduce the rigidity and stiffness that occurs in cerebral palsy so we can help these children who do not have any effective treatment,” said Dr. Oluigbo. 

In September 2020, CNH became the Foundation’s first Center of Excellence focused exclusively on pediatrics. Five years prior, they became the first in the US to use focused ultrasound to treat pediatric osteoid osteoma, a painful benign bone tumor that commonly occurs in children and young adults. Since then, the CNH team has built an active clinical trials program and become a leader in translation of focused ultrasound for the treatment of pediatric solid tumors and brain tumors.  

For Patients 

To learn more about the cerebral palsy clinical trial, please contact