High-intensity focused ultrasound. Just hearing the name, almost no patient would associate this thing with anti-cancer. Maybe they thought it was an instrument and equipment in the field of engineering infrastructure. Looking at the English, High-intensity Focused Ultrasound, I still don’t recognize it. ;The abbreviation of the English acronym, HIFU, try to pronounce it - isn't this "HIFU" .
Some hospitals, in order to vividly reflect its anti-cancer efficacy and make it easier for cancer patients to understand, will also call it "Haifudao" .
To put it bluntly, this thing is to focus high-intensity ultrasonic waves into a small range, generate powerful energy, and then "scald" cancer cells to death.
This is a bit like the plot that often appears in TV series. Find a piece of ice to make a convex lens , and then focus the sunlight on a point to ignite something or use it as a weapon to kill the enemy.
The picture below shows a complete set of instrument platforms for Haifu knife treatment under ultrasound guidance:
Haifu knife has a history of 20 to 30 years. It is used in the treatment of prostate cancer , pancreatic cancer , Extensive clinical trial data and valuable clinical experience have been accumulated in various solid tumors such as liver cancer . Many of them cannot tolerate other more invasive surgeries, interventional treatments , radiofrequency ablation and other treatments. A non-invasive, safe and effective local treatment method for patients in the middle and advanced stages.
Treatment of liver cancer
As early as 2011, the American Annals of Surgery (the most authoritative academic journal in the field of surgery in the United States) reported clinical research data on the use of Haifu knife to treat unresectable intermediate and advanced liver cancer.
49 patients with liver cancer who were inoperable due to various factors received a single treatment with Haifu Knife. The median size of the patient's tumor was 2.2 cm, and the largest one was 8 cm. The success rate of the treatment was 79.5%, 1 year The survival rate was 87.7%, and the 3-year success rate was 62.4%.
The picture below shows the significant weakening of liver tumor activity in one of the patients before and after treatment:
Treatment of pancreatic cancer
In the treatment of pancreatic cancer, Haifu knife has many advantages at home and abroad in terms of shrinking tumors, relieving pain and prolonging survival to a certain extent. Less data.
In 2015, Professor Joan Vidal-Jove from Barcelona, Spain reported the clinical data of 43 patients with intermediate and advanced pancreatic cancer treated with Haifu Knife. The local effective rate after treatment was 82%, and the median maintenance time of the effect was 8 weeks.
In addition, many patients also received systemic drug treatment such as chemotherapy, and 2% of patients had complete disappearance of tumor activity. Combination therapy resulted in severe pancreatitis in one patient. The patient also suffered severe skin burns, which improved after surgical skin grafting.
The median overall survival of this group of patients is 13 months, which is basically equivalent to the survival data of other treatments. The picture below shows a successful case in which the metabolism of pancreatic tumor completely disappeared and the cancer cells were completely inactivated after treatment with Haifu Knife. The location circled in red box in the picture is the location of the original tumor, and now there is no FDG uptake at all:
Recently, the European Journal of Urology, Europe's most authoritative academic journal on urinary system diseases , published large-scale retrospective data on the use of Haifu knife to treat 1,379 cases of intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer.
The median age of this group of patients was 66 years old, and the median PSA was 6.9ng/ml; the median follow-up was 32 months, and 252 patients had received more than one Haifu knife treatment (due to disease recurrence and other reasons) ) , and ultimately 92 (only 6.7%) patients relapsed repeatedly after treatment with Haifu and had to undergo surgical resection.
Among the entire group of patients, the 7-year local tumor progression-free survival rate was 69%. Such a data is almost equivalent to the efficacy of radical surgery or radical radiotherapy.
In summary, for some patients with mid-to-late-stage abdominal and pelvic solid tumors who have needs and indications for local treatment but cannot tolerate other methods such as surgery, radiotherapy, radiofrequency, etc., Haifu is another safe and effective option. anti-cancer weapon.
Reference:
[1]. High-intensity focused ultrasound for hepatocellular carcinoma: a single-center experience. Ann Surg. 2011 May;253(5):981-7
[2]. tumors: The Spanish experience of survival advantage in stage III and IV pancreatic cancer. Ultrason Sonochem. 2015 Nov; 27:703-706
[3]. Cancer Control Outcomes Following Focal Therapy Using High-intensity Focused Ultrasound in 1379 Men with Nonmetastatic Prostate Cancer : A Multi-institute 15-year Experience. Eur Urol. 2022 Apr;81(4):407-413.
