Passive Acoustic Mapping to Monitor Drug Delivery

英国癌症研究中心估计，超过三分之一的人会在一生中患上癌症。目前的肿瘤治疗方法在疗效上差异很大，并且产生了不可接受的副作用。如果有可能针对这些治疗，使它们只影响癌症存在的区域，这将大大减少这些治疗的难以忍受的副作用，使它们更安全，更有效。牛津大学BUBBL实验室最近取得的进展已经允许粒子的发展，当与超声波结合时，已被证明会增加体内的空化。超声触发空化可用于实现多种治疗效果。最值得注意的是，在药物治疗的情况下，癌症肿瘤内发生的空化现象已被证明可以显著提高药物的疗效。这种超声波可以聚焦在选定的局部区域，允许在指定位置加强药物输送，而不会以任何方式影响身体的其余部分，这使得这是一种完全非侵入性的治疗。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负面副作用，因为这种局部增强允许使用更低的总体浓度。然而，非侵入性治疗需要非侵入性监测技术。目前对这些治疗的监测技术是无效的，并且仅限于大型和昂贵的MRI扫描仪，使得这些治疗不可能广泛使用。被动声学测绘是一种新的成像方法，可以检测空化过程中释放的声能，并定位能量的来源。这有可能成为一种更便宜、更有效的监测这些新疗法的方法。我的项目旨在使这项技术在临床环境中可用，首先试图找到这种能量和手术安全性之间的关系，其次找到这种能量和治疗效果之间的关系。该项目属于EPSRC医疗保健技术研究领域。具体来说，我将关注临床技术（不包括想象），因为我将改进一种使用声波传递药物分子的疗法。我也将在医学成像领域工作，因为空化核的声发射将被用来产生图像，这将使临床医生能够监控这些疗法，从而提高它们的安全性和有效性。这些进步将极大地帮助这些超声疗法进入迫切需要它们的诊所。

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.