Cancer

Certain ultrasound frequency may selectively destroy cancer cells

New research suggests a very specific ultrasound frequency and pulse duration can kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones alone
New research suggests a very specific ultrasound frequency and pulse duration can kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones alone

A team of Caltech researchers is proposing a radical new technique for killing cancer cells using low-intensity ultrasound waves. The preliminary research is still at an incredibly early stage but early in vitro studies have demonstrated sound waves pulsed at a specific frequency can effectively destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact.

Several recent breakthrough studies have revealed novel ways ultrasound waves can be used to non-invasively treat cancer. The most advanced method is known as high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). This method targets cancer cells with focused and powerful sound waves, heating and destroying the diseased tissue.

The challenge with clinically deploying HIFU is finding ways to better focus those damaging waves as they can very easily destroy healthy tissue. An impressive advance last year demonstrated a novel way to use the technique to target prostate cancer, however, the problem of collateral healthy tissue damage still remains.

The idea that exposing a body to particular sound frequencies that can cure disease has been sitting on the fringes of medicine for centuries. Countless pseudo-scientific claims have suggested the discovery of a magic frequency that could cure humans of all their ills, however, almost all these alternative ideas have not been backed up by rigorous science.

In 2016, Michael Ortiz, a Caltech researcher, published an intriguing article in the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids. Ortiz, and co-author Stephanie Heyden, said they had developed a mathematical model showing a distinct gap between the resonant growth rates of healthy and cancerous cells.

These findings meant, in theory, a very specifically tuned sound wave could vibrate the nucleolus membrane of a cancer cell to the point of rupture. Due to this natural frequency gap between healthy and cancerous cells, the method should leave healthy cells unharmed while non-invasively destroying the diseased cancer cells.

Combining the Greek words for tumor (oncos) and breaking (tripsy), the early study named the process, oncotripsy. Of course, at the time the idea was still hypothetical but it attracted a number of like-minded researchers keen to test out the real-world implications of the process.

“When I heard about it, I thought it was intriguing and that, if it worked, could be a revolutionary way of treating cancer,” says Peter Lee, a scientist from the research center City of Hope who was fascinated by the idea and became involved in the project.

So, the researchers began lab experiments testing a variety of ultrasound frequencies, pulse patterns and durations on human cancer cells. In a new study, published in the journal Applied Physics Letters, the research team describes homing in on a certain frequency and duration of ultrasound that results in the outer membrane of a cancer cell breaking down while leaving other healthy cells alone.

“Our results demonstrate that specific parameters of low intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) can induce cancer cell-selective cytodisruption,” the researchers conclude in the new study. “In an in vitro model, LIPUS applied at 0.5 MHz with a 20 ms PD [pulse duration] had the largest therapeutic margin in disrupting a diverse panel of cancer cells while leaving healthy blood and immune cells largely intact.”

Interestingly, the study suggests that although the acoustic frequency cited as effective is not dissimilar from the frequency commonly used in diagnostic ultrasound scans, the cancer cell disruptions were only detected when pulse durations exceeded 10 milliseconds. The study notes most diagnostic ultrasound methods use much shorter pulse durations of around 10 microseconds.

“This is an exciting proof-of-concept for a new kind of cancer therapy that doesn’t require the cancer to have unique molecular markers or to be located separately from healthy cells to be targeted,” explains David Mittelstein, one of the authors of the new study. “Instead we may be able to target cancer cells based on their unique physical properties.”

It is important to stress this research is still at its very earliest stages. The method has only been tested in cell cultures so it will need to be validated in solid tumors, and then animals, before human trials are even considered.

Just like the rare, but real, phenomenon of human singing voices shattering wine glasses, the clinical reality of oncotripsy may prove to be incredibly difficult to turn into consistent clinical practice. Nevertheless, this new study offers a faint hope that however improbable it may be to use sound waves to kill cancer, it may not be impossible.

The new research was published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Source: Caltech

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7 comments
paul314
This sounds like something that would be subject to evolution if selective pressure were applied.
Venetian
This is a reboot of technology from literally a 100 years ago. Royal Raymond Rife, and inventor and scientist demonstrated these very same results on cancer cells and other pathogens back in the 1920's. He was hounded and bankrupted by the medical establishment and the government.
spright
Venetian comment is worth researching. It is far past time we benefit from scientific achievements that have been held back.
ljaques
Hey, if certain frequencies can trigger cold fusion for Keanu ;) and works in the lab, please do continue researching it. Seriously. Cancers are horrible, horrible diseases.
Albert L
Sounds like another important application for Artificial Intelligence to be useful in. Perhaps using robotics to move around the ultra sound device and automatically adjusting the pulses to not hard the known cells and possibly damaging the cancer ones cancer can be controled around important structures that are normally too delicate using available methods.
meofbillions
There are huge gaps in this article and unfortunately the author does not give the title of the paper for us to learn details. A 0.5 Hz ultrasound frequency has a wavelength of over 600 microns. Human cells size from a few microns up to about 150 microns, all which are too small to exhibit internal resonance with a sound wave at 600 microns. Are we talking about some other kind of induced vibration?
But what kind? Also, what features of the cancerous cell distinguish it from normal cells? I like the idea of being made aware of tech news, but it's a shame that the tech writers don't seem to have a grasp on the technologies they are reporting on.
Michael Irving
@meofbillions: The paper is linked in the second-last line.