Selective Inhibition of Glioma Cells In Vivo via Low Intensity Ultrasound.

Cancer remains a leading cause of premature death, in part due to the challenge of selectively targeting cancerous cells while preserving healthy tissues. Conventional cancer therapies often cause collateral damage to healthy cells, failing to achieve selective targeting. Here, we demonstrate that low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) can be modulated to selectively inhibit mouse glioma cells when tuned to 0.3 MHz and inhibit human glioma cells when tuned to 0.7 MHz. Tuned LIPUS reduced viability by over 25% in mouse and human glioma cell lines in vitro (p < 0.001), while by less than 5% for normal glial cell controls. LIPUS tuned to 0.7 MHz inhibited tumor weights with 31.1% (p < 0.05) in a subcutaneous xenograft mouse model using human glioma cells and induced apoptosis in vivo. This demonstration of acoustically-driven, selective inhibition of cancer cells suggests promise for non-invasive glioma treatment while causing minimal damage to surrounding healthy brain tissue.