Current Landscape of Sonodynamic Therapy for Treating Cancer

Abstract

Recent advancements have tangibly changed the cancer treatment landscape. However, curative therapy for this dreadful disease remains an unmet need. Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) is a minimally invasive anti-cancer therapy involving a chemical sonosensitizer and focused ultrasound. A high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) beam is used to destroy or denature targeted cancer tissues. Some SDTs are based on unfocused ultrasound (US). In some SDTs, HIFU is combined with a drug, known as a chemical sonosensitizer, to amplify the drug’s ability to damage cancer cells preferentially. The mechanism by which US interferes with cancer cell function is further amplified by applying acoustic sensitizers. Combining multiple chemical sonosensitizers with US creates a substantial synergistic effect that could effectively disrupt tumorigenic growth, induce cell death, and elicit an immune response. Therefore, the minimally invasive SDT treatment is currently attracting attention. It can be combined with targeted therapy (double-targeting cancer therapy) and immunotherapy in the future and is expected to be a boon for treating previously incurable cancers. In this paper, we will consider the current state of this therapy and discuss parts of our research.

Exosomes and ultrasound: The future of theranostic applications

“…Recently, treatments involving sonoporation for drug internalization and sonosensitization for activation of drugs were performed together and it is termed as sonodynamic therapy [ 208 ]. This could be achieved with low-intensity ultrasound that produce non-thermal and mechanical effects on the tissues [ 282 ]. Similarly, ultrasound has shown its potential in influencing certain intracellular processes for modulating neural activity, inhibiting inflammatory signaling, angiogenesis and tissue regeneration.…”

Multimodal Therapies against Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: A Review on Synergistic Approaches toward Ultimate Nanomedicine Treatments

“…[417] Applied to pancreatic cancer, it increases the local temperature up to 65 °C, killing tumor cells and disrupting the PC stromal barrier, potentially allowing chemotherapy delivery to the tumor. [418] Therefore, in the last 20 years, it has been successfully employed alone or in combination with chemotherapy, [25,407] generally showing promising results in terms of tumor reduction and survival rates. HIFU is now recommended for the treatment of unresectable PDAC.…”

“…The main advantage with respect to PDT is the greater penetration of ultrasound, which enables deep tumor treatment while avoiding tissue sensitization and skin phototoxicity. [418,451] Moreover, US is also a widely accepted safe technology in the context of clinical imaging due to its low cost, high sensitivity, and absence of ionizing radiation. [452] When a biological medium is exposed to US, it undergoes thermal and mechanical effects.…”

“…[464] In the last decade, data from several studies suggest that a multimodal approach involving a combination of SDT with different techniques such as chemotherapy, starvation therapy, PTT, PDT, or immunotherapy is the most promising strategy to pursue, in the light of the documented synergistic cancer effects achieved so far. Although many applications of SDT-based combination therapies on cancers have generally provided promising results, [34,418,461,462,[465][466][467] literature concerning pancreatic cancer is still poor and mostly limited to in vitro studies. [468,469]…”

Multimodality imaging and treatment of paranasal sinuses nuclear protein in testis carcinoma: A case report

“…Heat therapy uses the biothermal effect of nonionizing radiation physical factors to heat up the tissue and kill the tumor tissue or promote the apoptosis of tumor cells[ 4 ]. SDT is a noninvasive anticancer treatment method using chemical sonosensitizers and high-intensity focused ultrasound, by which cancerous tissue is destroyed or denatured using a concentrated, high-intensity ultrasound beam[ 5 ]. This case is the first attempt to apply heat therapy and SDT in the treatment of NMC.…”