WYOMING, Mich. — People with liver cancer will now have a new treatment option, using ultrasound to disrupt tumors. University of Michigan Health West is the second hospital in the state to do it.
Greg Allushuski is the first histotripsy patient in West Michigan.
“The procedure was yesterday. It’s an amazing, amazing process,” said Greg.
He was diagnosed with liver cancer two months ago.
“I have no pain, no surgical cuts,” said Greg.
Dr. Clifford Cho, chief medical officer at UM Health-West, suggested that Greg might benefit from histotripsy therapy.
Greg said, “He said, I absolutely was a candidate. And he was with a new machine here in Western Michigan; I would be the first. And a couple of days later, yesterday, we had the procedure.”
Now Dr. Cho says that Greg’s liver cancer is gone.
“What histotripsy really allows us to do is it allows us to destroy tumor tissues in a way that's just much more precise than any other method that we currently have,” said Dr. Cho.
Histotripsy uses no needles or scalpels, involves no heat or radiation, and is robotically guided.
Dr. Cho said, “It's really about as non-invasive as having an ultrasound test, and so as a result, it's just extraordinarily safe and almost unbelievably well tolerated.”
The procedure uses focused ultrasound waves that destroy and liquefy the cancerous tumor.
“It turns it into a slurry, basically. And that slurry contains no living cells any longer. And that slurry, over time, gradually gets reabsorbed by the body,” said Dr. Cho.
He says histotripsy represents a major shift in how doctors view liver cancer treatment.
Dr. Cho said, “So, it’s a new technology. It's only been available to patients around the country and around the world for several months now.”
Greg is just glad that he was selected to receive the therapy.
“It is amazing. I went in feeling good, and I came off feeling even better. I feel great today, one day later," said Greg.
Currently, the FDA has only approved histotripsy to treat liver cancer, but other cancer treatments are going through clinical trials.
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