Cancer treatment by ultrasound: French doctors are developing a very promising technology!
If a cancerous brain tumor is identified, the main option is the neurosurgical act. But to prevent recurrences, radiotherapy or chemotherapy sessions are generally prescribed. The effectiveness of this last option is often limited. Only a very small portion of molecules in circulation passes the filter. Increase in traffic doses of treatment is not an option because it would become dangerous to other parts of the body.
For many years, researchers are questioning the best way to make this filter permeable very transitory. In France, the idea of using ultrasound to stretch the mesh of the filter, in a very targeted way, took shape.
In July 2014, teams of neuro-oncology services at the hospital La Pitié-Salpêtrière, and the Institute for Brain and Spinal, with who Evadeô Pro regularly works, set up a clinical trial, enrolling a twenty patients with recurrent situation of malignant brain tumor. « Set in the thickness of the skull, the ultrasound device is activated a few minutes before the intravenous injection » say doctors in a press release issued June 15, 2016 . « Two minutes of ultrasound emission are sufficient to permeabilize temporarily the blood-brain barrier for 6 hours, thus allowing diffusion of the therapeutic molecule in the brain five times higher than usual. » The blood-brain barrier « closes spontaneously » after six hours, the statement said.
The results of the clinical trial are considered very encouraging. They stress that « no side effects were detected by MRI or during the clinical examination. Our preliminary results indicate that the repeated opening of the blood-brain barrier by using this pulsed ultrasound system, combined with an injection [of chemotherapy], is safe and well tolerated by patients […], and has the potential to optimize the administration of chemotherapy in the brain. »
The researchers note that in the medical literature, the recurrence of tumors in patients with the same profile are found after two months on average, participants in their test « showed no evidence of recurrence four months after the treatment. »
According to Professor Alexandre Carpentier, coordinator of the study, this method « offers hope in treating brain cancer, but also other brain diseases, potentially Alzheimer’s disease, for which existing therapeutic molecules are struggling to enter the brain. This technique should continue its assessment process to consider a clinical routine passage in a few years. «
Evadeô Pro encourages research and such initiatives, which testify again of the French medical excellence and its international influence. To cure your cancer in the best French hospitals, our teams are at your disposal to collect your medical records and your requests and offer you a suitable care pathway at the best price.
Evadêo Pro – Leader of Healthcare stays and medical tourism in France.
Get treatment in France