Abstract
The integration of therapeutic interventions with diagnostic imaging has been recognized as one of the next technological developments that will have a major impact on medical treatments. Therapeutic applications using ultrasound, for example thermal ablation, hyperthermia or ultrasound-induced drug delivery, are examples for image-guided interventions that are currently being investigated. While thermal ablation using magnetic resonance-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound is entering the clinic, ultrasound-mediated drug delivery is still in a research phase, but holds promise to enable new applications in localized treatments. The use of ultrasound for the delivery of drugs has been demonstrated, particularly in the field of cardiology and oncology for a variety of therapeutics ranging from small-molecule drugs to biologics and nucleic acids exploiting temperature- or pressure-mediated delivery schemes.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
Holger Grüll and Oliver Steinbach are employees of Royal Philips Electronics NV. Pedro Sanches is a PhD student from the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. Part of the research was supported by EC project FP7-NMP-2008–2001–213706 SonoDrugs. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.