Howard G. Smith MD, AM on Instagram: "Focused Ultrasound Blasts Chemotherapy Pathways Into The Brain The blood-brain barrier is a protective shield that keeps blood-borne toxins out of your brain. It is also a barrier that keeps lifesaving cancer drugs from destroying brain cancers. Columbia University pediatric oncologists have found a non-invasive way open the gates for beneficial therapy. The researchers tested focused ultrasound on three children with a diffuse midline glioma, an aggressive and lethal brain cancer with survival limited to about a year. Using the ultrasound to vibrate microscopic gas bubbles at the tumor site and temporarily increase blood-brain barrier permeability, chemotherapy medications could reach the cancer cells. Each of the children tolerated the procedure well, demonstrated temporary improvement, but sadly died of their disease or CoVid complications. The other focused ultrasound benefit is the fact that it can be performed in a child-friendly room using historical MRI data rather than in the MRI scanner itself. Given the success of this small, preliminary feasibility trial, a larger trial is now underway. Temporarily opening the blood-brain barrier to effective therapy should improve pediatric brain cancer treatment results. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-focused-ultrasound-treatment-pediatric-brain.html https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adq6645 #ultrasound #focused #bloodbrainbarrier #braincancer #chemotherapy"

Columbia University pediatric oncologists have developed a non-invasive method using focused ultrasound to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier and allow chemotherapy medications to reach cancer cells in the brain. This breakthrough treatment has shown promise in improving treatment results for pediatric brain cancer patients and is now being tested in a larger trial.