WYOMING, Mich. — A West Michigan hospital is now offering an innovative therapy for patients with liver cancer. It's called histotripsy, and it uses ultrasound waves to mechanically disrupt tumors.
University of Michigan Health-West is the first hospital in West Michigan offering histotripsy. The first patient to receive the treatment did so this week.
"I think it's an absolute breakthrough for cancer," said Greg Allushuski, the first patient in West Michigan. "It's the wave of the future."
Histotripsy is a non-invasive procedure that uses acoustic energy to target tissue, liquifying tumors. It was FDA approved in 2023 to treat liver cancer. UM Health-West is the second hospital in the state to offer it, following University of Michigan Health in Ann Arbor.
"It's essentially a new and very different way for us to treat tumors," said Dr. Clifford Cho, chief medical officer at UM Health-West. "Quite honestly, we haven't had that kind of new, disruptive technology in the cancer field for a while. So, it's fun to be able to witness that."
While histotripsy is approved to treat liver cancer, Cho said he has hopes it will be approved to treat other cancers in the future.
Due to its non-invasive nature, histotripsy can be used in conjunction with other cancer treatments.
"It remains possible that histotripsy could even make some of the other therapies work a little bit better," said Cho. "And if that's the case, that opens up a lot of other sort of options for how to integrate histotripsy with cancer treatment."
Allushuski spoke to 13 ON YOUR SIDE about his treatment less than 24 hours after getting it. He said he felt great, and his CT scan looked good in the morning.
"I have no surgery, had no chemo, no radiation anymore," said Allushuski. "We can watch our grandkids growing up. I've got my life back."