Faculty News

Histosonics

Charles Cain Ph.D.
Brian Fowlkes Ph.D.
Timothy Hall Ph.D.
Zhen Xu Ph.D.
William Roberts M.D.

Many patients are faced with a difficult choice when considering surgery as a treatment option. Open surgery, which is the most invasive and has the highest likelihood of complications, also delivers the best long term outcomes. Less invasive procedures are attractive from a complications and recovery standpoint, however, they tend to yield less effective long-term outcomes. Until recently, a tool that is both non-invasive and as effective as open surgery has been nothing short of a dream. That changed approximately 10 years ago when Drs. Charles Cain and Brian Fowlkes discovered that they could use focused sound waves to non-invasively break up tumors and unwanted lesions. They named this tool "Histotripsy". Their early work enabled them to procure several millions of dollars in grant money to further study and develop this innovative and useful new tool. It also attracted several excellent graduate students including Zhen Xu and Timothy Hall, both of whom received their Ph.D.s and continue to work on histotripsy-related projects and grants. Additionally, Dr. William Roberts, a urologist at the U of M, joined the effort and uses his medical expertise to drive the clinical side of histotripsy. The next steps will be to create a clinical prototype, and to work on the FDA submission for the new product. To this end a company, Histosonics, has been formed to commercialize histotripsy. The first clinical application will be BPH (benign prostate hyperplasia). In the meantime, histotripsy's efficacy for additional applications is being explored and developed by Dr. Cain's research team. Potential applications include thrombolysis (clot breakup), kidney stones, uterine fibroids, breast lesions, and brain tumors - to name a few. Just last week, Histosonics was invited to present at the MichBio conference in the Emerging Bioscience Showcase.

Posted on November 24, 2008, 2:33 pm