AUSTIN (KXAN) — A new technology is giving doctors a non-invasive method for treating liver cancer, without requiring incisions or surgery.
Histotripsy uses ultrasound waves to create tiny air bubbles in the tissue. As the bubbles shrink and expand, they physically damage cells in a certain area. Doctors can specify which areas receive the treatment by drawing around them on a computer screen. This ensures that only the selected cells are affected, without harming healthy tissue.
“It’s kind of cool-looking when you’re watching it,” said Dr. Christopher Oxner, a surgical oncologist at St. David’s Medical Center. “It looks almost like a 3D printer where you see it move around the lesion.”
Oxner compared histotripsy to ablation therapy, a common treatment for liver cancer. With ablation therapy, doctors insert a needle into the tissue and use radio waves or microwaves to heat up and destroy cells. But this can also harm healthy tissue and leave scarring behind, something histotripsy avoids.
“It leaves basically dead cellular debris, but it’s totally obliterated,” Oxner said. “The thought is hopefully, the body will use that to maybe make antibodies—but at the very least, it destroys that whole area.”
However, histotripsy has size limitations, making it less effective on larger areas. The tumor also has to be visible on an ultrasound. The procedure still requires general anesthesia so doctors can control the patient’s breathing, but no incision is needed.
The treatment, while FDA-approved, is not very widespread yet; St. David’s Medical Center is the only location in Central Texas offering histotripsy. The company behind the technology, Histosonics, is currently researching applying it to treat kidney cancer and pancreatic cancer.
According to the American Cancer Society, over 800,000 people around the world are diagnosed with liver cancer each year. It’s also the leading cause of global cancer deaths—over 700,000 each year.
“It’s kind of nice that we can offer a little bit more with the same efficacy as far as treating and ablating their liver tumors,” Oxner said. “That’s the kind of exciting thing about it.”
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