CURE-OP
The aim of CURE-OP is to develop the first commercially available high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) platform specifically designed for combinational cancer therapy. Today, the most common treatment options to cure cancer are surgery, radiation therapy (RT), chemotherapy and targeted therapy including immunotherapy. The approach followed in the CURE-OP project is not to replace any of those options, but to use focused ultrasound to enhance their effectiveness, in this case, the outcome of radiotherapy.
The approach of this project is to introduce HIFU as a complementary tool for other cancer therapies by providing a robotic device that can deliver a broad range of ultrasound regimes (hyperthermia, thermal ablation, and cavitation) and, therefore, to enable different types of cancer polytherapy.
HIFU on top of being completely noninvasive has shown to be able to radio-sensitize cancerous tissue and reactivate the immune system to act against cancer. It might therefore be able to become an alternative to conventional surgery. The introduction of HIFU into radiotherapy treatment work-flows requires the development of a device that can be put into an RT suite. In the scope of this project’s timeframe, the HIFU device will be used in combination with a radiotherapy (RT) machine and clinically tested.