2nd International Symposium on Therapeutic Ultrasound

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although medical ultrasound is well known as a modality for diagnosis, the concept of using High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) for therapy was suggested over a half-century ago, with crude efforts made a treating diseases of the brain. Unfortunately, due to limitations in therapy guidance, no wide-scale attempts were made to commercialize this technology. In the last 10 years, however, ambitious efforts have been undertaken in a number of countries to develop HIFU methods and devices to stop bleeding (acoustic hemostasis) and to treat diseases, such as Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH), uterine fibroids, and various forms of cancer. In addition, ultrasound at moderate acoustic intensities has been shown to be successful in the transient opening of cellular membranes, which has spurred recent research in sonoporation, ultrasound-activated drug delivery, and gene therapy using ultrasound as a vector. This interest has resulted in the organization of two recent International Conferences: The First International Conference on Sonodynamic Therapy, held in Fukuoka, Japan, in April of 2000, and the First International Symposium on HIFU Therapy, held in Chongqing, PRC, in May of 2001. These conferences were exciting in their content, and attracted much interest, but were poorly attended by Western scientists, engineers and clinicians. Plans have been made to combine these conferences into the 2nd International Symposium on Therapeutic Ultrasound, to be held in Seattle, WA, from 30 July-1 August 2002. This conference will provide a forum for the discussion of recent research and clinical results, but also as an opportunity to bring together scientists, engineers, clinicians, government funding agency representatives, industry leaders, and private investors to view the clinical and commercial potential for this new technology.