Sonodynamic therapy: is this the new weapon against cancer?

In 10 seconds? The first steps to test a cancer therapy in humans with much fewer side effects are underway. With this technology, drugs are activated by ultrasound once they reach the targeted tumour in the body, causing minimal harm.

Why is this important? Conventional anticancer approaches involve the use of invasive methods: operations and/or chemotherapeutic drugs or radiotherapy. The latter can have strong side effects by killing not just cancerous but healthy cells too – resulting in nausea, vomiting, infections and hair loss for the patient. On top of that, cancer cells start to tolerate chemotherapy and radiotherapy after a period, reducing their effectiveness. So, researchers – including our team - have been working on less invasive and more efficient approaches and one of those is sonodynamic therapy (SDT).