Key Points
- SNO’s 28th annual meeting and education day included a special session on focused ultrasound.
- Investigators presented abstracts on using focused ultrasound for liquid biopsy and blood-brain barrier opening, and in the treatment of glioblastoma.
The Society of Neuro-Oncology (SNO) held its 28th Annual Meeting and Education Day in Vancouver, Canada, from November 15–19, 2023. The conference included a special session on focused ultrasound, which was held jointly with the European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO) as well as an Independent Supported Session on Sonodynamic Therapy sponsored by SonaALAsense.
“There was more focused ultrasound activity at SNO than in previous years,” said Suzanne LeBlang, MD, the Foundation’s director of clinical relationships, who attended the week-long conference. “The special sessions on focused ultrasound were excellent, and one of the award-winning abstracts described critical focused ultrasound basic research on blood-brain barrier opening.”
Investigators presented 11 abstracts and posters on using focused ultrasound for liquid biopsy, blood-brain barrier opening, gene therapy, and sonodynamic therapy. For indications, presentations covered the treatment of glioblastoma, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, and metastatic brain tumors.
Karl Habashy, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Malnati Brain Tumor Institute at Northwestern University in Chicago, received the Abstract Award for Excellence in Basic Science for his project titled “Microglia repair the disrupted blood-brain barrier following low-intensity pulsed ultrasound through P2RY12 signaling.”
The EANO/SNO joint session on focused ultrasound included the following five expert presentations:
- Clinical trials of transient blood-brain barrier opening by transdural low intensity pulsed ultrasound presented by Alexandre Carpentier from Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
- Pre-clinical assessment of focused ultrasound BBB opening and targeted drug delivery for the treatment of high-grade gliomas presented by Anisia Talianu from Kings’s College London
- Ultrasound-based blood-brain barrier opening for drug delivery in humans: Pharmacokinetics, blood-brain barrier closure dynamics, and endothelial cell response presented by Adam M. Sonabend from Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
- Clinical use of therapeutic focused ultrasound for treatment of pediatric brain tumors by Lindsay B. Kilburn from Children’s National Hospital, Washington, DC
- Closing remarks presented by Graeme F. Woodworth from the University of Maryland
During the Independent Supported Session on Sonodynamic Therapy, which was titled “An innovative non-invasive neurosurgical procedure for brain tumors,” Kullervo Hynynen, PhD, presented preclinical data to an audience of about 150 attendees.
Each meeting abstract is listed below. The full text and author list for each abstract can be found by searching the ID number on SNO’s program website.
- BIOM-05 First-in-human prospective trial of sonobiopsy in glioblastoma patients using neuronavigation-guided focused ultrasound presented by Jinyun Yuan from Washington University in St Louis
- CTNI-55 A multicenter study of low-intensity focused ultrasound with systemic microbubble oscillators for blood-brain barrier disruption for liquid biopsy in glioblastoma (LIBERATE) presented by Manmeet S. Ahluwalia from Miami Cancer Institute, Baptist Health South Florida
- CTNI-63 A phase IIa clinical trial for combination of navigation-guide focused ultrasound and bevacizumab for patients with recurrent glioblastoma presented by Kuo-Chen Ｗei from New Taipei Municipal TuCheng Hospital (Built and Operated by Chang Gung Medical Foundation)
- DDEL-06 Microglia repair the disrupted blood-brain barrier following low-intensity pulsed ultrasound through P2RY12 signaling presented by Karl Habashy from Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
- DDEL-11 Focused ultrasound-mediated delivery of anti-programmed cell death-ligand 1 antibody to the brain of a porcine model by Siaka Fadera from Washington University in St Louis
- EXTH-58 Using MEK inhibitor to enhancement 5-ALA–mediated sonodynamic therapeutic effect: a preclinical study presented by Chiungyin Huang from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taoyuan, Taiwan (Republic of China)
- IMMU-04 Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound enhances CAR T cell therapy by inducing two-way immune cell trafficking – T cell into tumor and myeloid cell into periphery in a syngeneic mouse glioblastoma model presented by Akane Yamamichi from the University of California, San Francisco
- IMMU-21 Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound promotes the presentation of brain-derived antigens through enhanced trafficking of antigen-presenting cells from the brain into the periphery presented by Marco Gallus from the University of California, San Francisco
- IMMU-52 – Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound conducts antigen-independent T cell homing into the brain parenchyma with the intact blood-brain barrier presented by Marco Gallus from the University of California, San Francisco
- INNV-14 – Interim report of a phase 1/2 study of sonodynamic therapy (SDT) using aminolevulinic acid (ALA) and low-intensity focused ultrasound in pediatric patients with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) presented by Hasan R. Syed from Children’s National Hospital, Washington, DC
- RTID-01 – A randomized study of low-intensity focused ultrasound for blood-brain barrier disruption for brain metastasis from non-small cell lung cancer (LIMITLESS) presented by Manmeet S. Ahluwalia from Miami Cancer Institute, Baptist Health South Florida