WVU in the News: Using Ultrasound to Open the Blood-Brain Barrier

Glioblastoma is treated the same way today as it was in 2005, said Graeme F. Woodworth, MD, professor and chair of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Now, low-frequency focused ultrasound for brain therapeutics is poised for its last stretch of research before FDA approval consideration.

The parameters discussed in the newly published Device paper for reliably opening the BBB address elements such as pulse length, frequency, and acoustic power that “are variable, depending on what company’s device you have or what technology you’re using. That’s why standardization is really important,” said co-author Ali Rezai, MD, executive chair of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, whose team has studied focused ultrasound BBB opening to deliver aducanumab antibodies in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.