# Advancing Methods for MR-guided Focused Ultrasound Hyperthermia for Head and Neck Cancer

> **NIH NIH K99** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2024 · $12,905

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Head and Neck Cancer is a public health concern in the United States and a major challenge in oncology.
Chemoradiotherapy has been mainly adopted to improve survival for patients with head and neck cancers.
However, the benefit remains limited to patients with a high risk of complications, and the burden of toxicity
in surviving patients with head and neck cancers is severe. Hyperthermia combined with other treatments,
such as radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, has been shown in clinical trials to increase response
for head and neck cancers, but success is highly dependent upon the delivered thermal dose distributions.
Hence, this technology requires spatially controllable heat delivery and adequate temperature monitoring.
MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) can potentially be used to deliver hyperthermia. The focused
ultrasound technique has been received much interest due to its completely non-invasive heat delivery with
a high degree of spatial selectivity and dynamic control. With these inherent advantages, clinical MRgFUS
systems have been developed and approved for thermal ablation treatments of various sites, such as the
brain, uterine fibroids, prostate, pancreas, and bone metastases. However, the major technical challenges
remain for MRgFUS hyperthermia delivery to head and neck cancers: There is a need for 1) optimizing
sonication strategies for enhancing temperature distributions and delivering conformal hyperthermia to HNC,
and 2) advanced MR imaging methods for accurate temperature imaging with significantly reduced artifacts
and rapid MR imaging to evaluate tissue response. The proposed project will develop methods for more
effective hyperthermia delivery under magnetic resonance imaging control to increase response rate and
survival for patients with superficial and deep tumors in the head and neck, such as squamous cell carcinoma,
melanoma, and soft tissue sarcoma. In this project, the specific aims are 1) to develop practical and optimal
sonication strategies for conformal delivery of hyperthermia to target head and neck cancer, 2) develop
robust real-time MR thermometry methods for temperature imaging with a minimal artifact in the complex
anatomy of the head and neck, and 3) develop real-time simultaneous MR imaging of temperature and tissue
response during hyperthermia (R00 Phase). These technical developments will advance MRgFUS-mediated
hyperthermia delivery to head and neck cancers and the training plan includes opportunities to apply the
new knowledge. I have assembled an outstanding team of renowned mentors (Drs. Diederich, Larson, and
Payne) and specialized advisors (Drs. Ozhinsky, Bucknor, and Chan) with expertise in MR-guided Focused
Ultrasound therapy, clinical head and neck cancer treatment, quantitative MRI, and MR thermometry. The
proposed award will provide me with the necessary experiences to become an independent, transdisciplinary,
and translational scientist dedicated to ima...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10904960
- **Project number:** 5K99DE032397-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Kisoo Kim
- **Activity code:** K99 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $12,905
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2024-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10904960

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10904960, Advancing Methods for MR-guided Focused Ultrasound Hyperthermia for Head and Neck Cancer (5K99DE032397-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10904960. Licensed CC0.

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