High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) may cause the destruction of tumors by shaking the cancer cells.

Once the tumor cell membranes rupture, they leak their contents. This sounds a cancer “alarm” for your body’s immune system to produce tumor-fighting white blood cells.

Most people die of cancer because it spreads from the original tumor to other parts of the body. Cancer can go on to attack vital organs like the brain or the lungs which usually results in a worse outcome for the patient.

Many times, cancer cells spread because they are largely undetected by the immune system.

Currently, HIFU is being used or tested in the United States, Europe, and China in a form that kills tumors by heating them.

But researchers from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering reported in the Journal of Translational Medicine in early August that studies on mice suggest HIFU may work better by shaking the cancer cells first.

By sounding the cancer alarm and waking up the immune system, the cancer should have less chance to spread.

In the mouse study, researchers found that the immune response was twice as strong for mice with colon cancer when the cancer cells were shaken with HIFU.

But the study also showed that heating the tumor cells was more effective than shaking in killing the cancer directly.

So the researchers believe that it may be better to use heat from thermal HIFU to treat the primary tumor and shaking from mechanical HIFU to boost the immune system into fighting the spread of tumor cells.

If this approach works in human patients, this cancer-fighting treatment could be done without the need for surgery. Or HIFU could be used in conjunction with other treatments such as radiation.