High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) developer SonaCare Medical is highlighting a new study published online in BJU International on the use of its Sonablate 500 system to treat prostate cancer.
The results show that new software to register and fuse information from MRI and ultrasound scans enables the intraoperative visualization of tumors not normally seen on ultrasound scans alone, according to SonaCare.
Researchers from University College London (UCL) evaluated computer-aided deformable image registration software developed at the university to enable tumor location information derived from MRI exams to be used to plan and treat patients with the Sonablate 500 HIFU system (BJU Int, July 2, 2013).
Conducted as part of the INDEX trial, the pilot study included 26 men with MRI-visible tumors treated at the university with HIFU. Results demonstrated that the software did not add significant extra time to the standard procedural workflow.
If ongoing clinical trials show the clinical utility of focal therapy as an alternative to current standards of care, image registration software could help deliver focal therapy techniques in which individual tumors are treated within an appropriate and safe surgical margin, according to lead author Dr. Louise Dickinson of UCL.
The team at UCL, led by Dr. Dean Barratt, is now developing a commercial version of the prostate image registration/fusion software, called SmartTarget.
