Targeted BBB Opening with Golay-coded Ultrasound to Enhance Treatment of Glioblastoma

Motivation: The blood-brain barrier is a critical structure that protects neural tissue in the brain. However, it also presents a significant obstacle to therapeutic drugs reaching brain tumors. Goal(s): Our goal was to apply focused ultrasound precisely on tumor regions to increase drug delivery into the tumor while minimizing off-target effects in surrounding healthy tissue. Approach: We used Golay-coded ultrasound with contrast-enhanced MR imaging to assess BBB opening in normal mice and to target tumor sites in GBM models for evaluating treatment efficacy. Results: The Golay-coded group showed more consistent BBB opening regions, and tumor experiments also demonstrated the highest therapeutic efficacy. Impact: Golay-coded ultrasound enables precise BBB opening in targeted regions and can be a foundational adjunct technology to improve drug delivery efficiency, which could potentially be applied clinically to treat various brain diseases.