MRI and Ultrasound Can Help Deliver Cancer Drugs to the Brain

In a recent study, scientists used focused ultrasound beams guided by MRI to temporarily make the blood-brain barrier more permeable. Four patients with metastatic breast cancer received 20 total treatments of a monoclonal antibody treatment called Herceptin. The researchers employed a hemispheric helmet equipped with 1024 ultrasound transducers to deliver the ultrasound and adjusted the voltage in individual transducers to account for variations in skull thickness.

While receiving targeted ultrasound, the patients also got an infusion of lipid-based microbubbles, which prevented damage. Though the concept of employing ultrasound to increase the permeability of the blood-brain barrier dates back to the 1950s, it wasn’t until high-resolution MRIs came along that hope was given to this method.