1/7/2025
Michael Oelze is bringing ultrasound to cancer treatment
Technologies like MRI and X-ray CT have revolutionized medicine by allowing clinicians to noninvasively observe features within the body with high precision. Such imaging techniques have become standard tools in oncology, giving detailed information about tumor locations and directly showing the impact of treatments.
However, they are expensive, and it can take months for changes in a tumor to appear in scans. Some researchers are exploring an alternative: ultrasound. It is inexpensive and portable and, in some cases, gives more information than optical imaging.
Grainger Engineering has been a leader in ultrasound research since the 1960s, when electrical engineering professor William J. Fry was the first to demonstrate the technology’s medical utility. Today, the ultrasound research laboratory in ECE continues to advance medical ultrasound technology.
ECE professor Michael Oelze is leading two initiatives, both funded by the National Institutes of Health, to study uses of ultrasound in breast cancer treatment. The first uses ultrasound imaging to assess responses to chemotherapy, and the second aims to develop implantable tumor markers activated by ultrasound waves.
“There are many research groups around the world exploring cancer treatment applications of ultrasound, but Illinois is seen as a leader,” Oelze said. “We established many quantitative methods for diagnostic ultrasound... and we’re the only ones working in the breast cancer space.”
When conventional MRI or CT scanning is used to assess chemotherapy response, the only indicator is tumor shrinkage, which can take months to become visible. Ultrasound, however, is based on reflected sound waves, which are altered by changes in the tumor’s microscopic structure. These changes can appear in as little as two weeks.
“Our quantitative ultrasound techniques detect different sources of image contrast compared to traditional ultrasound,” Oelze said. “Only a very small percentage of the cells need to die for there to be a change in the ultrasound signature. And we don’t need an expensive machine that takes up an entire room. It’s a handheld probe taken to the bedside.”
The Illinois group has partnered with the Odette Cancer Centre at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada to perform clinical trials.
For chemotherapy, it is desirable to have a way of monitoring a tumor’s environment. Implantable sensors are one option. Oelze and the ultrasound research laboratory are working to develop passive, ultrasound-activated sensors to monitor breast cancer.
“Right now, implanted markers are metal clips that show up on x-rays,” Oelze explained. “If we could use ultrasound, then it’s something that, again, could be detected with a handheld sensor on the side of a bed or even in surgery.”
The researchers are collaborating with Carle Health and, through the Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance for Technology-Based Healthcare, the Mayo Clinic.
Oelze believes that engineering is crucial to medical practice because it provides clinicians with both tools for performing treatment and quantitative metrics for assessing treatments’ effectiveness.
“Engineering brings the perspective of quantitative methods to guide medical professionals in their decision-making,” he said. “Engineers think about things like the physics of ultrasonic wave-tissue interactions. They develop computational algorithms suited to the imaging method. They come up with actionable metrics that serve as effective surrogates for invasive surgical exploration.”
Michael Oelze is a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Illinois Grainger Engineering. He also holds appointments in the Department of Bioengineering at Illinois Grainger Engineering and the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. He is the interim director for research and entrepreneurship in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. He is a member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois.