Shrinking Tumors Could be Related to Ultrasound Beams Injecting Drugs Precisely

By: | October 10th, 2014

Image courtesy http://www.rsc.org/

Could the future of chemotherapy be linked to ultrasound beams? Electronically shaped beams of phased array radar system can engage multiple targets much faster than any mechanical system. This same technology has also been used to focus ultrasound beams to exact locations inside the body.

A new clinical study of the effectiveness of phased array radar systems for shrinking tumors may pave the way for a successful cancer treatment. Researchers from Chang Gung University in Taiwan have managed to reduce the size of tumors deep inside the brains of rats. They did this by blasting the drugs in through tiny channels in their vasculature created by high-power ultrasound.

Phased array technology allows an ultrasound beam to be focused to pinpoint locations inside the body. After that precisely-sized microbubbles need to be injected into the bloodstream that will resonate at the frequency of the ultrasound you use.

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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