Histotripsy for Musculoskeletal Tumors

Our lab has several ongoing projects to develop and investigate the use of histotripsy as an ablative and potentially immunostimulatory therapy for musculoskeletal tumors, including osteosarcoma and soft tissue sarcoma. In collaboration with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and its Animal Cancer Care and Research Center, we’ve completed several ex vivo and in vivo experiments, as well as multiple treat-and-resect veterinary clinical trials, demonstrating the feasibility of using histotripsy to ablate musculoskeletal tumors in dogs and cats with naturally-occurring tumors. Recently, we’ve also initiated our first treat-and-leave trial for canine osteosarcoma. Overall, the goal of this work is to develop optimized histotripsy treatment strategies and devices for human and veterinary musculoskeletal tumors alike.

Publications

Ruger L, Yang E, Coutermarsh-Ott S, Vickers E, Gannon J, Nightengale M, Hsueh A, Ciepluch B, Dervisis N, Vlaisavljevich E, Klahn S. Histotripsy ablation for the treatment of feline injection site sarcomas: a first-in-cat in vivo feasibility study. International Journal of Hyperthermia. 2023;40(1):2210272.
doi: 10.1080/02656736.2023.2210272

Ruger L, Yang E, Gannon J, Sheppard H, Coutermarsh-Ott S, Ziemlewicz TJ, Dervisis N, Allen IC, Daniel GB, Tuohy J, Vlaisavljevich E, Klahn S. Mechanical High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (Histotripsy) in Dogs With Spontaneously Occurring Soft Tissue Sarcomas. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2023;70(3):768-779.
doi: 10.1109/TBME.2022.3201709

Ruger LN, Hay AN, Vickers ER, Coutermarsh-Ott SL, Gannon JM, Covell HS, Daniel GB, Laeseke PF, Ziemlewicz TJ, Kierski KR, Ciepluch BJ, Vlaisavljevich E, Tuohy JL. Characterizing the Ablative Effects of Histotripsy for Osteosarcoma: In Vivo Study in Dogs. Cancers (Basel). 2023;15(3):741.
doi: 10.3390/cancers15030741