CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation is hosting the 2nd International Symposium on MR-guided Focused Ultrasound in Chantilly, Va. from October 17-20. Leading researchers and clinicians from around the world will gather at the three-day scientific conference to present and discuss the latest advancements in one of the most revolutionary and promising areas of therapeutic medicine.
"MR-guided focused ultrasound combines the visual precision of magnetic resonance imaging with the capabilities of focused ultrasound to noninvasively destroy tumors and other tissue abnormalities and to dissolve blood clots." says Joy Polefrone, Ph.D., scientific committee secretary for the symposium. "It is also being investigated as a replacement for radiation therapy and as a platform for targeted drug delivery, which is a form of personalized medicine that could drastically improve the effectiveness, and reduce the toxic side effects, of chemotherapy and similar treatments."
For patients, advances in the field of MR-guided focused ultrasound are expected to result in new, highly precise noninvasive procedures that improve survival and quality of life. "Treatments that now involve hospital stays, long recovery times and debilitating side effects could be replaced by outpatient therapies with rapid recovery times and few, if any, side effects," Polefrone explains.
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MR-guided focused ultrasound is now used worldwide to treat uterine fibroids. Outside the U.S., it is also an approved treatment for pain associated with metastatic bone cancer. Research activities are currently underway in a wide range of other disorders. Advancements in the following areas will be spotlighted at the symposium:
Emerging patient treatments
Prostate cancer - Safe, effective and highly-precise outpatient treatments that preserve patient potency and continence are primary aims of new, noninvasive MR-guided focused ultrasound therapies for this highly prevalent disease. Several symposium presentations and posters will describe results of early-stage human clinical trials that are evaluating two different approaches. The first, a transurethral device, has treated patients in a Canadian pilot study. The second, a transrectal device, is now treating patients at medical centers in Russia and Singapore.
Breast cancer - Could MR-guided focused ultrasound serve as an excisionless replacement for lumpectomy in treating early breast cancer patients? Japanese researcher, Hidemi Furusawa, M.D., believes that it has such potential. As evidence, he will share the results of a 57-patient study in which the new, noninvasive technology was used as a breast conserving treatment.
