Focused ultrasound is a rapidly evolving, therapeutic technology that could transform the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with COVID. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue. 

How it Works 

Where the beams converge, low intensity focused ultrasound enhances the delivery of tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) to disrupt the misfolded Amyloid microclots that are associated with this disease. These clots can cause thrombotic disruption, impaired oxygenation, and chronic inflammation in preclinical models. This impact is being pursued in COVID, but it also may be relevant in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Diabetes and others. While significant work has been accomplished, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available. 

The primary options for treatment these microclots are limited to unenhanced delivery of these blood thinners.  

For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a non-invasive addition to the existing treatment.   

Advantages 

• Focused ultrasound is non-invasive, so it does not carry added concerns like surgical wound healing or infection.  

• Focused ultrasound can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue. 

• It can be repeated, if necessary. 

Clinical Trials 

At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of COVID. 

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.   

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement  

Focused ultrasound treatment for COVID is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies. 

Notable Papers 

Rasouli R, Hartl B, D Konecky S. Investigation of the synergistic effect of enzymatic and Ultrasound-Induced amyloid microclot degradation. J Thromb Thrombolysis. 2025 Dec 17. doi: 10.1007/s11239-025-03220-0. PMID: 41405757 

Rasouli R, Hartl B, Konecky SD. Low-intensity ultrasound lysis of amyloid microclots in a lab-on-chip model. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2025 Jun 30;13:1604447. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1604447. eCollection 2025. PMID: 40661336 

Click here for additional references from PubMed.   

Focused ultrasound is a rapidly evolving, therapeutic technology that could transform the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with respiratory distress syndrome. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue. 

How it Works 

Where the beams converge, pulsed focused ultrasound produces an enhanced homing of injected umbilical stem cells, which can enhance the treatment of this disease. These stem cells can then mature to aid in the success in treating this disease. The work was done in a preclinical setting, and  there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available. 

The primary options for treatment of respiratory distress syndrome include medications and respiratory support.  

For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a non-invasive addition to conventional care.  

Advantages 

• Focused ultrasound is non-invasive, so it does not carry added concerns like surgical wound healing or infection.  

• Focused ultrasound can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue. 

• It can be repeated, if necessary. 

Clinical Trials 

At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of respiratory distress syndrome.  

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.  

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement  

Focused ultrasound treatment for respiratory distress syndrome is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies. 

Notable Papers 

Wang BY, Zhang X, Li TT, Qin WW, Liu X, Lu KM, Sun LX, Han W. Ultrasound assisted homing of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells promotes recovery from acute respiratory distress syndrome. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2025 Jul 26;16(1):407. doi: 10.1186/s13287-025-04545-6. PMID: 40713863  

Wang Y, Wang H, Tan J, Cao Z, Wang Q, Wang H, Yue S, Li W, Wang D. Therapeutic effect of mesenchymal stem cells and their derived exosomes in diseases. Mol Biomed. 2025 Jun 4;6(1):34. doi: 10.1186/s43556-025-00277-4. PMID: 40465163 

Click here for additional references from PubMed.   

Focused ultrasound is a therapeutic technology that could transform the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with sleep apnea. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue.

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces thermal ablation of a portion of the tongue, which helps prevent the tongue from obstructing the airway while sleeping.  

The primary options for treatment of sleep apnea include continuous positive pressure devices or invasive surgery for an implanted system to stimulate this nerve.

While significant work has been accomplished, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available.

Advantages
For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as like surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. Focused ultrasound can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue, and it can be repeated, if necessary.

Clinical Trials

At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of sleep apnea. However, a clinical trial is being organized on this topic in the US.

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement

Focused ultrasound treatment for sleep apnea is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies.

Notable Papers

Kaffenberger TM, Soose RJ. Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation Therapy for Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Compend Contin Educ Dent. 2023 Jun;44(6):332-339.PMID: 37418470

Click here for additional references from PubMed. 

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with tuberculosis. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue.

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces precise ablation (thermal destruction of tissue) enabling preclinical models similar to tuberculosis to be treated without surgery. While significant preclinical work has been accomplished, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available.

Advantages
World-wide, tuberculosis is still a major problem. The primary options for treatment of tuberculosis include medications, which are not completely effective. For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative and perhaps more effective alternative to conventional therapy. It also carries less risk of complications, such as surgical wound healing or infection. It can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue and is repeatable, if necessary.

Clinical Trials

At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of tuberculosis.

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement

Focused ultrasound treatment for tuberculosis is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies.

Notable Papers

Xie S, Cao H, Li J, Prasad Adhikari V, Yang M, Dong Y, Li D, Du Y. Bactericidal effects of high intensity focused ultrasound on Bacillus Calmette-Guerin in vivo and in vitro. Int J Hyperthermia. 2019;36(1):886-896. doi: 10.1080/02656736.2019.1649474.

Click here for additional references from PubMed.

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with sinonasal disease. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets in the nose without damaging surrounding normal tissue.

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces thermal ablation of the target, which can treat turbinate hypertrophy and possibly other conditions in the nose. There are a couple of manufacturers making devices to help with this treatment.

In a preclinical study, focused ultrasound was nearly twice as effective as radiofrequency ablation for treatment of inferior turbinate hypertrophy.

Advantages
The primary options for treatment of sinonasal disease include medication, radiofrequency turbinoplasty or invasive surgery.

For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide an alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. It can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue and is repeatable, if necessary. While significant preclinical work has been accomplished, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available.

Clinical Trials

At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of sinonasal disease.

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement 

Focused ultrasound treatment for sinonasal disease is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies.

Notable Papers

Al-Halali A, Khalaf A, Yaseen E. The Effectiveness of Hight-Intensity Focused Ultrasound in Treating Nasal Obstruction Caused by Inferior Turbinate Hypertrophy: A Clinical Study. Cureus 2024 April 15. Doi:10.7759/cureus.58348 

Kim HG, Kim DS, Choi YS, Lee ES, Yoo HJ, Kim DY. High-intensity focused ultrasound therapy versus Coblation for treatment of inferior turbinate hypertrophy: Clinical trial. Clin Exp Otorhinolaryngol. 2023 Feb 13. doi: 10.21053/ceo.2022.01312. PMID: 36791808 

Kim JK, Cho SW, Kim H, Jo SC, Kim HG, Won TB, Kim JW, Lim JH, Rhee CS. Development of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) Therapy in Inferior Turbinate Hypertrophy. Clin Exp Otorhinolaryngol. 2021 Mar 30. doi: 10.21053/ceo.2020.02383. 

Click here for additional references from PubMed.

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with both primary and metastatic lung tumors. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasonic energy precisely and accurately on targets in the body with minimal damage to surrounding normal tissue.

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces therapeutic effects that could potentially enable lung tumors to be treated without incisions or radiation.

One mechanism is the production of precise ablation (thermal destruction of tissue). This destruction can be done to completely destroy the target or to partially treat it. Partial treatment is believed to stimulate the patient’s immune response, which may have a broader impact.

Challenges in using focused ultrasound to treat lung tumors have been identified. The main obstacles include the movement of the lungs with respiration, the air spaces in the lungs which can disrupt the energy deposition of the ultrasound beams and limitations based on rib coverage of the target. Efforts are underway to address all of these concerns, including the use of one lung filling (OLF), where the patient is ventilated with the non-treatment lung, and the lung to be treated is filled with saline prior to attempting focused ultrasound therapy. 

An isolated case was reported at a scientific meeting in which a metastatic tumor located in the anterior portion of the lung was treated with ultrasound-guided focused ultrasound. See the discussion of this case.

Advantages
The primary treatment options for lung tumors, both primary and secondary, currently include different combinations of surgical resection, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. For primary lung cancer, curative treatment requires complete surgical resection of the tumor. However, more than 50% of patients who are diagnosed with lung cancer have inoperable tumors at the time of diagnosis due to the advanced stage of the disease, insufficient lung function, or patient refusal of a complex surgery.

For certain patients, including those whose tumors are non-operable, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive treatment option to preserve quality of life.

It could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as infections and blood clots – and shorter recovery times. Focused ultrasound’s precise targeting minimizes damage to non-targeted healthy tissue, and there is no risk of radiation-induced fibrosis, which enables multiple repeat treatments if necessary. Focused ultrasound can also be a complement to drug therapy, enabling enhanced delivery of chemotherapy or immunotherapy to tumors, with lower doses of drugs and minimal toxicity. It also may potentially induce an anti-tumor immune response.

Clinical Trials

A clinical trial for patients with lung cancer that has metastasized to the brain has begun recruiting patients in the US.  

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/.  

Find a Treatment Site

Search for a treatment center or clinical trial near you.

Preclinical Laboratory Studies

Preclinical studies suggest that focused ultrasound may play a beneficial role in the treatment of lung tumors. Recent feasibility studies have shown that focused ultrasound can be an effective, minimally invasive way to destroy tumors in the lung, with the potential to target only the tumor and minimal risk of damage to the surrounding tissues. Focused ultrasound could provide a more precise alternative to radiofrequency ablation and offers potential side effects that are significantly more tolerable than those of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. More studies are needed to further establish the safety and efficacy of this treatment modality before research can progress to the clinical stages.

Additional Resources

American Cancer Society
National Cancer Institute
American Lung Association

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement

Focused ultrasound for the treatment of lung tumors is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies.

Notable Papers

Wu H, Kim H, Kreager BC, Bruegge RHV, Ostras O, Chen M, Lee YZ, Pinton GF, Burks AC, Jiang X. A Miniaturized Multidirectional Stacking Ultrasound Transducer for Endo-bronchoscopy Lung Nodule Ablation. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2025 Oct 16;PP. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2025.3622642. PMID: 41100247 

Yu X, Zheng S, Zhao L, Zhang K. Ultrasound-Mediated Microbubble Disruption to Enhance Radiopharmaceutical Access to the Tumor Microenvironment in Immune-Resistant Lung Carcinoma. Cancer Biother Radiopharm. 2025 Sep 26. doi: 10.1177/10849785251371491. PMID: 41005985 

Hu C, Fu Q, Gao FF, Zeng J, Xiao W, Li H, Peng L, Huang X, Yang L, Chen WZ, Jiang MY. Ultrasound-Guided High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Combined With PD-1 Blockade in Patients With Liver Metastases From Lung Cancer: Protocol for a Single-Arm Phase 2 Trial. JMIR Res Protoc. 2024 Nov 29;13:e59152. doi: 10.2196/59152. PMID: 39612480 

Yang JB, Powlovich L, Moore D, Martin L, Miller B, Nehrbas J, Tewari AR, Mata J. Transcutaneous Ablation of Lung Tissue in a Porcine Model Using Magnetic-Resonance-Guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS). Tomography. 2024 Apr 6;10(4):533-542. doi: 10.3390/tomography10040042. PMID: 38668399 

Cao R, Huang Z, Nabi G, Melzer A. Patient-Specific 3-Dimensional Model for High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Treatment Through the Rib Cage: A Preliminary Study. J Ultrasound Med. 2019 Nov 13. doi: 10.1002/jum.15170.

Wolfram F, Lesser TG. A simulation study of the HIFU ablation process on lung tumours, showing consequences of atypical acoustic properties in flooded lung. Z Med Phys. 2018 Jul 20. doi: 10.1016/j.zemedi.2018.06.002.

Click here for additional references from PubMed.

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with persistent allergic rhinitis. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasonic energy precisely and accurately on targets nose without damaging surrounding normal tissue. 

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces precise ablation (thermal destruction of tissue) enabling persistent allergic rhinitis to be treated without surgery. This treatment has been approved in Europe and Asia. 

Advantages
The primary options for treatment of persistent allergic rhinitis include medications. Surgery may be needed if medications are ineffective.

For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. It can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue and is repeatable, if necessary. 

Clinical Trials

There is currently one clinical trial using Focused Ultrasound to treat patients with allergic rhinitis in Chongqing, China.  

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/. 

Find a Treatment Site

Search for a treatment center or clinical trial near you.

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement

Focused ultrasound treatment for rhinitis is approved in Europe and Asia. It is not yet covered by medical insurance companies.

Notable Papers

Liu S, Xiao Y, Xiao K. Clinical effectiveness of focused ultrasound combined with plasma radiofrequency ablation technique in the treatment of persistent strain rhinitis. Medicine (Baltimore). 2024 Jun 28;103(26):e38538. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000038538. PMID: 38941395 

Zhong B, LiLK, Deng D, Du JT, Liu YF, Liu F, Liu SX. Effect of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Versus Plasma Radiofrequency Ablation on Recurrent Allergic Rhinitis. Med Sci Monit. 2019 Sep 9;25:6775-6781. doi: 10.12659/MSM.916228. 

Feng GF, Han ZL, Wang F, Sun BC, Dai ZY, Yang SZ, Zhou CY. Comparison of high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy under nasal endoscopy guidance versus first-line drug treatment in patients with persistent allergic rhinitis. Genet Mol Res. 2015 Aug 19;14(3):9865-71. doi: 10.4238/2015.August.19.20. 

Wei H, Shi L, Zhang J, Xia Y, Cuan J, Zhang Y, Li W, Yan A, Jiang X, Lang MF, Sun J. High-intensity focused ultrasound leads to histopathologic changes of the inferior turbinate mucosa with allergic inflammation. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2014 Oct;40(10):2425-30. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2014.05.016. Epub 2014 Aug 15. 

Wei H, Zhang Y, Shi L, Zhang J, Xia Y, Zang J, Yan A, Li W, Jiang X. Higher dosage of HIFU treatment may lead to higher and longer efficacy for moderate to severe perennial allergic rhinitis. Int J Med Sci. 2013 Nov 27;10(13):1914-20. doi: 10.7150/ijms.7117. eCollection 2013. 

Click here for additional references from PubMed.