Purpose
Six years ago, in 2015, the Focused Ultrasound Foundation sponsored a workshop to discuss, and subsequently transition the landscape, of focused ultrasound as a new therapy for treating glioblastoma.
Methods
This year, in 2021, a second workshop was held to review progress made in the field. Discussion topics included blood–brain barrier opening, thermal and nonthermal tumor ablation, immunotherapy, sonodynamic therapy, and desired focused ultrasound device improvements.
Results
The outcome of the 2021 workshop was the creation of a new roadmap to address knowledge gaps and reduce the time it takes for focused ultrasound to become part of the treatment armamentarium and reach clinical adoption for the treatment of patients with glioblastoma. Priority projects identified in the roadmap include determining a well-defined algorithm to confirm and quantify drug delivery following blood–brain barrier opening, identifying a focused ultrasound-specific microbubble, exploring the role of focused ultrasound for liquid biopsy in glioblastoma, and making device modifications that better support clinical needs.
Conclusion
This article reviews the key preclinical and clinical updates from the workshop, outlines next steps to research, and provides relevant references for focused ultrasound in the treatment of glioblastoma.
Cardiac disease is the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality in pregnancy behind peripartum hemorrhage. In developed countries, a majority of cardiac disease in pregnancy is secondary to congenital heart defects, whereas in developing countries, mitral stenosis secondary to rheumatic fever prevails as the leading cause of cardiac disease during pregnancy. There is added workload on the heart during pregnancy due to the increased blood volume and cardiac output of the parturient. In patients with preexisting cardiac disease, this added workload may lead to decompensated congestive heart failure. Alternatively, such physiologic changes may unmask an unknown cardiac lesion in an unsuspecting patient. Medical management is always the first-line treatment of the pregnant patient with decompensated heart failure. However, if medical management has failed, cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass may be necessary. Due to the unique maternal physiology and the presence of not only one but also two patients, anesthesia, cardiac surgery, and cardiopulmonary bypass come with specific challenges, hemodynamic goals, and ethical dilemmas.
This new technique has the potential to increase lung cancer survival rates while decreasing morbidity associated with current practices as it allows a less invasive manner for ablation or tumor debulking.
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