Passive Acoustic Mapping to Monitor Drug Delivery

英国癌症研究中心估计，超过三分之一的人在一生中会患上癌症。目前的肿瘤治疗在其有效性方面差异很大，并产生不可接受的副作用。如果这些治疗方法能够靶向治疗，使它们只影响癌症存在的区域，这将大大减少这些治疗方法难以忍受的副作用，使它们更安全，更有效。牛津大学BUBBL实验室最近取得的进展允许开发粒子，当与超声结合时，已被证明可以增加体内空化。超声触发空化可用于实现许多治疗结果。最值得注意的是，在药物治疗的情况下，在癌症肿瘤内发生的空化已被证明可以显着提高药物的疗效。这种超声波可以聚焦到选定的局部区域，从而在特定位置增强药物输送，而不会以任何方式影响身体的其他部位，这使得它成为一种完全非侵入性的治疗方法。这种新疗法具有巨大的潜力，不仅可以提高抗癌药物的有效性，还可以减少这些药物的副作用，因为这种局部增强允许使用较低的总浓度。然而，非侵入性治疗需要非侵入性监测技术。目前的监测技术对这些治疗是无效的，并限于大型和昂贵的MRI扫描仪，使这些疗法的广泛使用是不可能的。被动声映射是一种新的成像方法，允许检测在空化过程中释放的声能，并定位该能量来自哪里。这有可能成为监测这些新疗法的更便宜和有效的方法。我的项目旨在通过首先尝试找到该能量与手术安全性之间的相关性，其次找到该能量与治疗效果之间的相关性，使该技术可用于临床环境。该项目属于EPSRC医疗保健技术研究领域的福尔斯。具体来说，我将着眼于临床技术（不包括想象），因为我将改进一种使用声波输送药物分子的疗法。我还将在医学成像领域工作，因为空化核的声发射将用于产生图像，使临床医生能够监测这些治疗，从而提高其安全性和有效性。这些进步将极大地帮助这些超声疗法进入急需它们的诊所。

Cancer Research UK estimates that more than one in three people will develop cancer over the course of their lifetime. Current oncological treatments vary widely in their effectiveness and produce unacceptable levels of side effects. If it were possible to target these treatments so that they only affected regions where the cancer is present, this would massively decrease the unbearable side effects of these therapies, making them safer and more effective.Recent advances made by the BUBBL lab in Oxford have allowed for the development of particles which when combined with ultrasound have been shown to increase cavitation in vivo. Ultrasound-triggered cavitation can be used to achieve many therapeutic outcomes. Most notably, cavitation taking place within a cancer tumour in the presence of drug therapies has been shown to dramatically improve the drug's efficacy. This ultrasound can be focussed to a select and localised region, allowing drug delivery to be enhanced at a specified location without affecting the rest of the body in any way, this makes this a completely non-invasive treatment.This new therapy has huge potential to not only improve the effectiveness of anticancer agents but also to decrease the negative side effects of these agents, as this local enhancement allows for lower overall concentrations to be used. However, non-invasive therapies require non-invasive monitoring techniques. Current monitoring techniques for these treatments are ineffective and are limited to large and expensive MRI scanners, making the widespread use of these therapies impossible.Passive Acoustic Mapping is a new imaging method that allows for the detection of the acoustic energy released during cavitation and localisation of where that energy came from. This has the potential to be a much cheaper and effective method for monitoring these novel therapies. My project will aim to make this technique usable in a clinical setting by firstly trying to find a correlation between this energy and the safety of the procedure, and secondly to find a correlation between this energy and the efficacy of the treatment.This project falls within the EPSRC healthcare technologies research area. Specifically, I will be looking at clinical technologies (excluding imagine) as I will be improving a therapy for the delivery of drug molecules using acoustic waves. I will also be working within medical imaging, as the acoustic emissions from the cavitation nuclei will be used to produce an image which will allow clinicians to monitor these therapies thereby improving their safety and efficacy. These advances will greatly help these ultrasound therapies make their way into the clinic, where they are sorely needed.