Cynthia Tibbetts was diagnosed with breast cancer 12 years ago. She’s been fighting for her life ever since, with her husband by her side.
"Half of our marriage has been fighting cancer," said James Tibbetts, Cynthia's husband.
"I was diagnosed stage-four," Cynthia said.
She's had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, but the cancer has come back again and again. The last scans showed it spread to Cynthia's brain.
"Six brain tumors. I mean, you talk about getting the wind knocked out of you," James explained.
Now, doctors are performing a clinical trial on a new way to treat cancer that's spread to the brain. It's called focused ultrasound.
"What we do is we shoot these ultrasound beams into a target deeper than the brain," explained Dr. Stephen Monteith, neurosurgeon at Swedish Neuroscience Institute at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington.
The device delivers more than 1,000 beams of ultrasound. The cancer cells heat up to about 190 degrees Fahrenheit and die. Doctors perform MRIs during the treatment.
"We actually can watch during the MRI scan while the patients’ receiving the treatment as the tumor heats up," said Dr. Charles Cobbs, neurosurgeon at Swedish Neuroscience Institute.
Unlike radiation, the ultrasound doesn't damage healthy tissue, and unlike surgery, there's no cutting. Cynthia hopes the new technology will help people like her. She was given six months to live three years ago and is still fighting, and living.
"I want to encourage people to continue to live their lives well. You know, whatever life you have, live it well," Cynthia exclaimed.
Patients are awake for the procedure and feel only warmth on their head.
At four sites around the country, the focused ultrasound technology is being studied for brain tumors that have spread. The technology is also being looked at for patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor.
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