Post by Mass General Brigham

Five years ago, Karl Helfrich’s world seemed to suddenly shut down. Karl put his head down on his desk and could not speak coherently. Minutes later, he couldn’t recall what he had said. After a battery of tests, MRI scans revealed a lesion in Karl’s brain, and he was referred to Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon and executive director of the Center for Tumors of the Nervous System at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute. After a successful operation, along with a standard course of chemotherapy and radiation to treat what is now known to be glioblastoma, Karl received an unusual invitation. “I was asked if I wanted to participate in a clinical trial that would use focused ultrasound to disrupt the blood-brain barrier,” Karl recalls. Karl accepted, and after months of the trial treatments, the team discovered that it worked. “I don’t know whether I’m doing well today because of the surgery, the radiation, the chemotherapy, the focused ultrasound, my genetics, or some combination,” Karl says. “But it was gratifying to see the results and to know that I had helped.”