Faculty News
2009 Coulter Funded Projects: "Non-invasive Ultrasonic Prostate Tissue Ablation using Histotripsy in Treatment of Prostate Cancer"
Charles Cain, PhD and William Roberts, MD
Fourth year of funding - 2009 funding: $125,000; funding to date $475,000
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a common urologic condition among older men that frequently manifests as lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). The increased frequency of symptoms with age, coupled with an associated decrease in quality of life prompted 4.5 million physician visits for a primary diagnosis of BPH in 2000. In that same year, direct costs for non-pharmacologic treatment of BPH were estimated to be $1.1 billion.
Current therapies for BPH are lacking. Transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) - long considered the gold standard - has a significant risk profile that may be less tolerable in older patients and those with co-morbidities. Minimally invasive treatments, although widely employed, are uniformly less effective than TURP due to their inability to provide sufficient tissue debulking. Although some patients with mild LUTS may derive durable benefit from minimally invasive thermal modalities, a significant portion will eventually fail and require definitive tissue debulking therapy when they are older, have increased co-morbidity, and thus are at greater risk of surgical complication. There is a need for development of new technologies that can replicate the anatomic effect and efficacy of TURP with an improved risk profile.
The team's goal is to develop a non-invasive ultrasound procedure for precise prostate tissue ablation and treatment of BPH and has already developed and tested a novel non-invasive ultrasonic technology that utilizes pulse, focused ultrasound to generate non-thermal mechanical effects within a targeted tissue volume. This technology is called soft tissue lithotripsy, or "histotripsy", and preliminary results of transcutaneuos ablation of normal prostate tissue in a canine model are very promising.
As a project that is now in its fourth year of funding, Dr. Cain's team will be focusing this year on establishing a new company, Histosonics LLC, and addressing IP and commercialization issues, as well as first round Venture Capital funding that will help propel this technology more quickly into a clinical setting.
A list of all the U-M Coulter funded projects is found on the UM BME Coulter Site.
Posted on June 22, 2009, 9:03 am