Experimental treatment at UVa uses focused ultrasound

John Watterson has suffered from tremors since he was a teenager. The tremors got worse with age, and by his early 70s, his hands trembled so badly that he had trouble feeding himself. He couldn't hit a golf ball off a tee, he lamented, without taking multiple swings.

He visited the University of Virginia Medical Center in 2011 to try an experimental treatment called focused ultrasound. After an intensive, nerve-wracking four-hour treatment, the tremors on the right side of his body were gone.

Two years after the procedure, he says it was worth it.

"It's made me a little more confident about eating and all the fine-motor things," Watterson said. "My golf game hasn't improved but I can certainly tee up the ball."

Watterson was one of 15 patients with a neurological disorder called essential tremor who received focused ultrasound treatment as part of a study spearheaded by UVa neurologists Dr. W. Jeffrey Elias and Dr. Neal Kassell.

Elias said he believes he can use ultrasound - a technology usually associated with medical imaging - to "operate" on patients, removing harmful or diseased tissue without having to cut a patient open.

A normal operation on essential tremor would involve drilling a hole in the back of the skull; instead, Elias and his team focused ultrasound waves on a tiny area of the patients' brains, using MRI imaging for guidance. The concentration of thousands of ultrasound waves is enough to destroy the damaged tissue, eliminating the need for invasive surgery.

Earlier this month, the study's results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. All 15 patients, tested in the past two years, showed immediate improvement, Elias said. The improvements have held up so far, but Elias and his team will continue to monitor them.

Now Elias and his team hope they can treat some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. "This is the first time in the world that ultrasound has been used to treat a movement disorder," he said. "We've demonstrated that you can use ultrasound to solve neurologic problems."

Kassell, who also chairs the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, said the technology eventually could be used to treat all sorts of ailments, including back pain and tumors throughout the body. The Food and Drug Administration already has approved it to treat uterine fibroids - benign growths on the uterus - and pain from bone metastases.

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Experimental treatment at UVa uses focused ultrasound