Focused Ultrasound Foundation

08/07/2025

08/07/2025

After living with essential tremor for decades, healthcare attorney Michael Werner found lasting relief through noninvasive focused ultrasound. After successful treatment on his dominant hand in 2024, Michael returned to UVA Health in 2025 for bilateral treatment on his other side. In this video documenting the second procedure, he shares the immediate results and the sense of control it restored.

The FDA approved focused ultrasound in July 2016 to treat essential tremor on one side and for staged bilateral treatment in December 2022.

08/07/2025

Essential tremor is a common movement disorder that causes involuntary shaking, disrupting daily life. While not everyone needs treatment, for those who do, there’s hope beyond medication.

Focused ultrasound is a breakthrough treatment that uses sound waves to target the brain areas causing tremors—without an incision. Neurosurgeon Rees Cosgrove, MD, FRCSC, explains some benefits, including:

• Outpatient procedure, generally 2–3 hours and patients can go home the same day
• Immediate tremor relief
• Significant, lasting improvement

Learn if this approach is right for you or a loved one: http://spklr.io/6188B1rP6

08/06/2025

08/06/2025

08/06/2025

In the fight against essential tremor, success relies on more than just one medical expertise—it takes a dedicated, multidisciplinary team across the patient journey.

From primary care, general neurologists to movement disorder experts, surgeons and support staff - each specialist plays a critical role in improving the lives of those affected and ensuring they get access to the right treatment. 🧠

Over 60 million are suffering from ET today, but only 28% seek care*. MR-guided focused ultrasound is an incisionless therapy option for ET patients that can help people Get Back to Life**.

Learn more about therapy options and help more patients get the right treatment at https://insightec.com/global/lp/patient-landing/

*Gupta et al. Exploring essential tremor: Results from a large online survey. Clin Park Relat Disord. 2021 Jun 25;5:100101.)

**Referring to the significant improvement in quality of life.
Important safety information can be found at https://insightec.com/global/safety-information/


National Tremor Foundation

08/06/2025

From Inventor to Patient: The Parkinson’s Breakthrough That Came Full Circle

In a unique twist of fate, an engineer who spent decades developing cutting-edge technologies for Israel’s defense sector, found himself not only the creator of a groundbreaking Parkinson’s treatment but a patient treated with the very device he had developed.

After transitioning from a career in defense to healthcare innovation, Kobi Vortman, PhD set out to develop a non-invasive method to treat brain conditions like Parkinson’s disease. Two decades later, he found himself on the receiving end of the treatment he had invented. Vortman’s innovation, focused ultrasound (FUS) with the guidance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), targets the deep areas of the brain responsible for tremors, offering a non-invasive alternative to brain surgery. The technology has already benefited over 22,000 patients worldwide and is reshaping treatment for conditions like Parkinson’s and essential tremor.

Six years after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Vortman underwent FUS at Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam) in Haifa, the first hospital in the world to implement the new treatment. Following treatment, Vortman’s life has completely turned around. “I’m taking long walks again, something I struggled with before.”

During the treatment, a helmet is worn, through which high-intensity ultrasound waves are used to precisely target the diseased area of the brain without affecting any surrounding tissue. The ultrasound rays pass through the intact skull and pinpoint a particular area in the center of the brain (the thalamus) for ablation. The result is interruption of the abnormal flow of electrical signals and cessation of tremor. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used by the surgeon to accurately direct the ultrasound waves to the specific site in the brain where the tremor is initiated—hence the treatment name—MRI-guided FUS. The doctors monitor the results in real-time and adapts treatment to a patient’s specific condition for optimal results.

Because the beams pass harmlessly through the intact skull, the treatment is incision-free, requires no general anesthesia or hospital stay, and produces rapid and often immediate tremor relief, particularly in patients who have stopped responding to medication.

Dr. Lior Lev-Tov, the head of Functional Neurosurgery Unit, underscores the accuracy of the treatment: “This technology allows us to target energy with pinpoint precision—down to 0.1 mm—in the 2 mm area responsible for tremors in the thalamus.”

Professor Ilana Schlesinger, director of the Movement Disorders Institute in the Department of Neurology at Rambam, adds: “We have come a long way since the first FUS treatment in the world was performed at Rambam. Read more... https://lnkd.in/e88Ht8fk

08/06/2025

08/06/2025

Focused Ultrasound for Essential Tremor

The first patient has been treated in a clinical trial using low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) neuromodulation to target essential tremor. The study explores whether LIFU neuromodulation could be useful for studying the brain circuits responsible for tremors and other brain disorders.

Up to 60 participants will be enrolled in this Foundation-funded trial.
Learn more: https://www.fusfoundation.org/posts/essential-tremor-neuromodulation-clinical-trial-begins-in-california/

08/05/2025

Now Live: 2025 State of the Field (SOTF) Report!

The Foundation’s comprehensive report detailing the latest progress in the field of focused ultrasound is now available. Long recognized as a must-have resource, the SOTF report is also accessible for the first time in a user-friendly dual format:

🔹Interactive Digital Platform – NEW!
Now, our website allows you to explore regularly updated data on focused ultrasound by indication, treatment site, manufacturer, approvals, coverage, and more.
🔹PDF Report
A downloadable version (traditional format) captures a snapshot of the field, providing historical context and long-term trend analysis.

This dual format provides both immediacy and depth, ensuring readers have the tools to track, understand, and support this rapidly advancing field.

A sincere thank you to our partners around the globe who contributed to the 2025 report! Learn more: https://ow.ly/Izhk50WzFKb