Anyone heard about Histotripsy for liver NETs?

A convincing announcement and animation of Histotripsy and liver cancer at the Univ of Chigo online. It’s FDA approved and being used in Chicago and possibly other places.

I have a 3 cm tumor near the tail of my pancreas, and “too numerous to count” metastases covering about 50% of the functional part of my liver. I have an oncologist at Mayo in Rochester and a second oncologist closer to home at University of Michigan. Both of them concurred in my current treatment program which is monthly lanreotide injections, which began August 2023. They both feel I’m doing well on the injections and recommended we not pursue more extensive therapy unless my NETs progress. I am age 77 which I think influenced their recommendation. I asked my U of M oncologist about histotripsy since it was developed at U of M. He felt it was way too early for my situation and that new applications of histotripsy would be slow to progress. As others have commented, probably more studies and experiments with different kinds of applications are called for. It does sound like an extremely effective therapy, and I am hopeful it can be expanded to other applications including to those of us who have numerous liver metastases. Best wishes to you all.

There are some limitations on it, for it's use now that it is FDA approved. It is only used on 3 tumors or less, that each are no bigger than 3cm each. There is a 2nd clinical trial starting later this spring that will work on situations where there is more than 3 tumors on the liver. No more info that we are aware of till then, as @kim1965 has more than 3 tumors, we will not be able to use at this time. We also got an opinion from our Cancer Care Team, and they said it is too new of technology for our case to consider this right now. Talk to your Care Team's about if it is a good choice for your case. We all got this!

LACNETS is sponsoring a presentation on 12/09 by An IR who specializes in all noninvasive treatment of liver mets. Go to LACNET.org to sign up for dec2023. This dr has incredible credentials and over 60 articles etc. She is also very aware of the sound wave technology/

Good luck to us all am advocating for my second embolization left lobe fast but ran into roadblock with an ulcer etc and some ascites time is of the essence. working on raising my albumin.

@kaw627 @hopeful33250 @retiredinkazoo @lindaldotson @dbamos1945
From the e-mail I received from LACNETS: "Join us on Saturday, December 9th at Noon Pacific to learn more about minimally invasive liver directed therapies targeting liver metastases with interventional radiologist Dr. Koethe. She discusses ablations including the recently approved histotripsy and embolizations including bland, chemo and radioembolization. There will be a live Q&A following the presentation."

Here's our chance to learn more about histotripsy. Registration link:
https://www.lacnets.org/dec2023?blm_aid=16545
If you can't watch the live online talk, they always post the talk on their website a couple days later. Great to watch live so you can ask general questions (no individual medical advice given).

I also spoke to my IR and was told some of what you were told - it's new but promising, they are looking at it carefully, etc. Your info filled in some blanks such as interesting insurance company implications. Thank you!

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.

Thanks for your post. My situation is very similar to yours. I look forward to reading your post after you talk to your NET doctor.

I too am not a candidate for surgery and hopeful about this revelation. Thanks.

I think histotripsy is pretty exciting. Watch the videos on it. Yes, it was just approved for liver tumors so far, but is also being researched for tumors in other areas. I'm meeting with my interventional radiologist next week to discuss my 6 month scans. He successfully performed microwave ablation to destroy my largest lung NET (2.6 cm). I'm going to ask him if he has been involved with histotripsy at all and his thoughts on it as compared to various types of thermal ablation. He told me my tumor was the largest he had even destroyed using microwave ablation and he was thrilled it was successful. I'll post anything interesting if he is familiar with histotripsy. Thanks to everyone for sharing links and info.