Treatment of canine and feline sarcoma using MR-guided focused ultrasound system

Purpose In recent years, veterinary medicine has enhanced its applications beyond traditional approaches, progressively incorporating the Focused Ultrasound (FUS) technology. This study investigated the ability of FUS to precisely ablate naturally occurring canine and feline soft tissue sarcomas (STS). Methods Six dogs and four cats with superficial tumours were enrolled in the study. The tumours were treated with a Magnetic Resonance guided FUS (MRgFUS) robotic system featuring a single element spherically focused transducer of 2.6 MHz. The tumours were then removed by surgery and sent for hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. Results The MRgFUS system was capable of inflicting well-defined overlapping lesions in the tumours. The anatomical sites of the treated tumours were the neck, leg, face, back and belly. Coagulative necrosis was evidenced by histopathology assessment in 80% of cases. Conclusion Therefore, this technology can be a therapeutic solution for veterinary cancer and a model for advancing the knowledge on human STS.