Thanks for the reminder to fill you in. I did ask my IR who did my lung tumor microwave ablation what he knows about histotripsy and how he thinks it compares to various thermal ablations. I hesitate to speak for him so note this is me paraphrasing what he told me. He finds histotripsy very interesting, but feels it needs a lot more testing (he wasn't specific about that, but I'm guessing for long term results). It may be slow to take off in the medical community due to the high cost, both the cost of the machine and supplies for each procedure. He believes two facilities are ready to invest in it so far. If it becomes approved for several organs rather than just the liver, that may look like a better investment. He feels insurance companies are likely to push back on it due to cost. Finally, for me, he did say it will never be used in the lungs because ultrasound can't penetrate the lungs. If anyone ever has the histotripsy procedure, I'd love to hear about their experience.

Jump to this post