Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Congenital abnormalities are complications of pregnancy that can lead to heart failure of the baby and loss of pregnancy. These are diagnosed by ultrasound and can be treated if the risk of fetal death outweighs the risk of surgery. Current therapies all involve minimally invasive access into the uterus and comes with a risk of preterm birth. Magnetic resonance guided high intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU) is a noninvasive therapy that is clinically approved in Canada for thermal ablation of uterine fibroids, and bone metastasis. MRgHIFU transmits ultrasound energy from a transducer located inside a dedicated MRI table that is below the patient, and focuses that energy into the body, producing a thermal lesion as small as a rice kernel. This focus is steered to cover a large treatment volume without repositioning the patient. Since the absorbed energy is nonionizing and incisionless, the risk of infection and long-term side effects are minimal, making it an ideal modality for fetal interventions. However, in the approved devices the energy source is located in configurations that are not adapted for a pregnant mother, and this is not amenable to a safe and ergonomically feasible treatment. The objective of this project is to develop a new modular MRgHIFU robotic platform that brings a HIFU transducer to a patient inside an MRI scanner in a configuration that provides a novel, safe and noninvasive therapy technology for some of our most vulnerable pediatric patients.