The Churchill Hospital of Oxford University

While ordinary ultrasound is well known for its diagnostic use, high-intensity focused ultrasound can be used to destroy tissues, including cancers.
Traditionally, surgery has been the only cure for many solid tumours. Recent technological advances have catalysed in a shift from open surgery towards less invasive techniques. High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has promised to deliver the ultimate objective——truly non-invasive tumor ablation. Only now, however, with improvements in imaging, has this objective finally emerged as a real clinical possibility.
HIFU involves a high-energy focused ultrasound beam (10,000 times the power of diagnostic ultrasound) which is directed harmlessly across the skin and intervening tissues towards the target tumour. Only at the focus of the beam is the energy level great enough to cause a temperature rise to about 80(0)C sufficient for instantaneous cell death. Unlike radiotherapy, the mechanism of action of HIFU is not tumour-specific and a wide variety of tumour types may be targeted. Furthermore, the treatment can be repeated as there is no upper limit of tissue tolerance to ultrasound exposure. There are very few side-effects of treatment, and serious adverse events are very rare.
HIFU treatment may be guided by ultrasound or MRI imaging. A typical focal region is ellipsoidal in shape and may be 15 mm along the beam axis and 1.5mm in diameter. Two main devices are in clinical use for cancer treatment, a trans-rectal device for the treatment of prostate cancer and an extracorporeal device for the treatment of abdominal tumours.

David Cranston

David Cranston
I trained in Bristol and worked in Exeter and Bath before coming to Oxford in 1983 to do research in renal transplantation under the direction of Professor Sir Peter Morris. I was awarded my DPhil in 1986 and was appointed consultant urological and transplant surgeon in 1991 after getting a clinical lecturer post in urology and transplantation. I am very interested in renal cancer and the urological complications of transplantation with a national referral for some patients needing complex renal cancer surgery.

In 1992, I set up a research programme with Professor Adrian Harris, Director of the Cancer Research Unit in Oxford, and had co-supervised many research students who carried out work in investigating bladder and kidney cancer. Several students have won international awards for their work.

I have been clinical director of the Churchill Hospital of Oxford University since 2002.

I am the author of 18 book chapters and over 100 peer reviewed publications.
Feng Wu

Feng Wu,Professor Feng Wu received his medical training at Chongquing Medical University in China. In 1988 he began his research career in high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy, and developed his own clinical HIFU device, with his work largely dedicated to treating solid tumors, including those of the liver, kidney, breast, pancreas, uterus, bone, and soft tissues. Until now Professor Wu and his teams have treated more than 50,000 patients, the largest population of HIFU treated cancer patients in the world. In 2002, Professor Wu was invited to help establish the first clinical HIFU Unit in the United Kingdom, and to assist in running clinical HIFU trials for the treatment of tumour patients in Churchill Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals. His pivotal role in bringing this emerging technology to the UK has made him become the first Chinese-trained clinician onto the specialist register in the UK - under the newly created Specialty of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy.Professor Wu is currently working as HIFU Consultant at Oxford University Hospitals, and also serving as Senior Clinical Scientist at Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford. He has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals and seven book chapters related to HIFU therapy, and served as Editor-in-Chief in the World Journal of Surgical Procedure and Editorial Board Member in nine peer-reviewed journals. He was one of the founders for International Society for Therapeutic Ultrasound (ISTU), and was selected as Secretary-General of ISTU for six consecutive years (2001-2006). Professor Wu received the Society’s William and Francis Fry Award in 2013, and served as Honorary Symposium President for the 4th International Symposium on Current and Future Applications of Focused Ultrasound in 2014.

HIFU Centers