Impact of focused ultrasound on the ethanol ablation of VX2 liver tumours in rabbits.

Wei Qiao, Yanlan Yu, Ye Huang, Wenhong Gao, Zheng Liu

European radiology 2020 Nov

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In this study, a treatment combining ethanol ablation (EA) and focused ultrasound (FUS) was performed to investigate its synergistic ablation effect on normal liver and VX2 liver tumours in rabbits. A total of 59 healthy New Zealand white rabbits were included. For normal liver ablation, 39 animals were treated with FUS alone (n = 12), EA alone (n = 12), EA+FUS combination treatment (n = 12), or the control treatment (n = 3). The other 20 rabbits with implanted VX2 liver tumours were treated with EA alone (n = 10) or EA+FUS (n = 10). For FUS, the liver was exposed to 1 MHz FUS with an intensity of 33.0 W/cm2 (ISPTA) for 20 s. The EA group received an injection of absolute ethanol in the liver or liver tumours. For EA+FUS combination therapy, FUS was focused at the EA injection site, and both methods were carried out at the same time. In normal liver tissues, the ablated volume treated by FUS combined with EA (1.46 ± 0.30 cm3) was approximately 3 times larger than that of EA alone (0.51 ± 0.17 cm3); in VX2 liver tumours, the tumour necrosis rate of the combination therapy was 90.27%, which was much higher than that of EA treatment (63.55%). The combination of EA and FUS could effectively increase the liver ablation volume and induce more complete tumour necrosis. • This study demonstrated a novel method for enhancing ethanol ablation and elucidated its potential to enhance percutaneous ethanol ablation (PEA) in a simple non-invasive way. • Ethanol excited by focused ultrasound (FUS) exposure tended to accumulate at the injection site, which could prevent ethanol from being washed out by the bloodstream. • The combination of EA and FUS could effectively increase the liver ablation volume and induce more complete tumour necrosis.

Citation

Wei Qiao, Yanlan Yu, Ye Huang, Wenhong Gao, Zheng Liu. Impact of focused ultrasound on the ethanol ablation of VX2 liver tumours in rabbits. European radiology. 2020 Nov;30(11):5862-5870