Article preview from Medtech Insight - October 1, 2011
To gain some perspective on the current state of focused ultrasound research, Medtech Insight interviews Neal F. Kassell, MD, Chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation and Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia. Kassell outlines some of the successes and remaining challenges in this field, discusses research efforts supported by the Foundation, and provides his perspective on the wide-ranging impact this technology could have on future treatment paradigms across multiple specialties.
Article preview from Medtech Insight - October 1, 2011
Although the field of image-guided focused ultrasound therapy is still in its infancy, there are many who believe the potential benefits of this noninvasive technology far outweigh any remaining challenges. According to Rivka R. Colen, MD, and Ferenc A. Jolesz, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, who published a review article last year in the journal Neuroimaging Clinics of North America, the technology has the potential to "radically shift treatment paradigms" in neurosurgery. And many other researchers are just as enthusiastic about FUS's future prospects for other clinical indications.
To gain some perspective on this arena and the current state of FUS research, Medtech Insight recently spoke with Neal F. Kassell, MD, Chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation and Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia. In the following interview, Dr. Kassell outlines some of the successes and remaining challenges in this field, discusses research efforts supported by the Foundation, and provides his perspective on the wide-ranging impact this technology could have on future treatment paradigms across multiple specialties.
Q: Medtech Insight: Can you provide a brief background on the FUSF and its mission?
Dr. Kassell: We started the Foundation five years ago this month. The vision was straightforward: to improve the lives of millions of people. The mission is to accelerate the development of new indications for focused ultrasound and to accelerate the worldwide adoption of the technology–the thesis being that every day that goes by without the technology being widely available translates into unnecessary death, disability, and suffering for countless people. We just want to shave years off the process.
Q: What was going on in the field at the time the Foundation was started – had researchers already begun using FUS to treat uterine fibroids?
They started using MR-guided focused ultrasound to treat fibroids, but there had been a lot of basic and clinical research performed on other indications as well, including breast, liver, and brain tumors and bone metastases.
Q: What are some of the most promising research projects that the Foundation is currently supporting?
Well, first let me give you a caveat. FUS may sound like snake oil because it is potentially good for so many things, but it's not without precedent. If 25 or 30 years ago, I told you there was a noninvasive diagnostic device that could image every organ in the body, not only its structure but its function, you would have said "you're nuts"; but that was MR imaging. So we're dealing with something as potentially important on the therapeutic side as MR was to diagnosis.
One of the most exciting things coming along in FUS research is essential tremor, which will be followed by studies on Parkinson's disease. Other areas of investigation include the treatment of epilepsy, brain tumors, thyroid tumors, breast tumors, and liver, pancreas, and prostate tumors, along with uterine fibroids and pain from bony metastases. In addition, there is some fairly fundamental FUS research ongoing for Alzheimer's disease [AD] as well.
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