However, opioids may produce a range

of side-effects from dysphoria to respiratory depression, and celiac plexus neurolysis provides limited benefit in pain relief, in addition to being an invasive procedure (5),(6). High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy is a non-invasive ablation method, in which ultrasound LGK-974 cell line energy from an extracorporeal source is focused within the body to induce thermal denaturation of tissue at the focus without affecting surrounding organs (Figure 1). HIFU ablation has been applied to treatment of a wide variety of both benign and malignant tumors including uterine fibroids, prostate cancer, liver tumors and other solid tumors that are accessible Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to ultrasound energy Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (7)-(10). Preliminary studies have shown that HIFU may also be a useful modality for palliation of cancer-related pain in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer (11)-(14). The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the physical principles of HIFU therapy and to review the current status of clinical application of HIFU for pancreatic cancers. Figure 1 Illustration of extracorporeal high intensity focused ultrasound treatment of a pancreatic tumor using a

transducer that is located Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical above the patient that is in the supine position. Reproduced with permission from Dubinsky et al. (10). Physical mechanisms underlying HIFU therapy Ultrasound is a form of mechanical energy in which waves propagate through a liquid or solid medium (e.g., tissue) with alternate areas of compression and rarefaction. The main parameters that are used to describe an ultrasound wave are its frequency, or the number of pressure Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical oscillations per second, and pressure amplitude, as illustrated in Figure 2C. Another important characteristic of an ultrasound wave is its intensity, or the amount of ultrasound energy per unit surface, which is proportional to the square of the wave amplitude.

Figure 2 (A) A single-element HIFU transducer has a spherically curved surface to focus Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical ultrasound energy into a small focal region ever in which ablation takes place, leaving the surrounding tissue unaffected. (B) In a phased-array HIFU transducer the position of … Both HIFU devices and diagnostic ultrasound imagers utilize ultrasound waves with frequencies typically ranging from 0.2–10 megahertz (MHz), but the difference is in the amplitude and in how the ultrasound waves are transmitted. Diagnostic ultrasound probes transmit plane or divergent waves that get reflected or scattered by tissue inhomogeneities and are then detected by the same probe. In HIFU the radiating surface is usually spherically curved, so that the ultrasound wave is focused at the center of curvature in a similar fashion to the way a magnifying lens can focus a broad light beam into a small focal spot (Figure 2A).