Researchers from the University of Michigan have discovered a revolutionary way of treating liver cancer. In their latest trials on rats, they managed to break down liver tumors, kill cancer cells and stimulate immune system.
Non-invasive treatment using sound waves
In the trials, sound waves were able to destroy up to 75% of the liver tumors using noninvasive sound technology. This helped the rats’ immune systems to tackle the leftover cancerous tissues and prevent them from reemerging. Moreover, in these rats, there were no signs of recurrence or metastasis.
Scientists said that even if the entire tumor is not targeted, the treatment can still cause the tumor to regress and also reduce the risk of future metastasis.
This new treatment is called “histrotripsy”. Researchers used ultrasound waves delivered in microsecond-long pulses to targeted tissues. These waves targeted tissue with millimetre precision.
Moreover, this treatment does not involve any adverse side effects like chemotherapy and radiation poisoning.
This non-invasive treatment to target cancer could prove to be a game-changing treatment for liver cancer patients
Study author Tejaswi Worlikar said “Histotripsy is a promising option that can overcome the limitations of currently available ablation modalities and provide safe and effective noninvasive liver tumor ablation,”
“We hope that our learnings from this study will motivate future pre-clinical and clinical histotripsy investigations toward the ultimate goal of clinical adoption of histotripsy treatment for liver cancer patients.”
