Doctors at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa said on Tuesday they achieved a rapid withdrawal from severe opioid painkiller dependence using an innovative focused ultrasound treatment that lasted about 20 minutes. The procedure, the first of its kind in Israel, used Israeli technology developed by Insightec and was carried out as part of an international study in a small number of medical centers worldwide.
The patient, a man in his 40s from northern Israel, became addicted after a neck injury several years ago. Although the original pain eased, his drug use escalated until he was taking about 130 pills a day. Dr. Amir Minerbi, head of Rambam’s pain medicine institute, said, “With time the pain diminished, but he could not break free from the pill dependence and the doses kept rising.” He added that at one point, “he was no longer taking the drugs because of pain, but because the body needed the substance itself.”
During the procedure, doctors targeted the nucleus accumbens, a brain region central to reward, pleasure, and addiction. Unlike existing focused ultrasound treatments for conditions such as essential tremor and Parkinson’s that use heat to damage tissue, this method used a new neuromodulation approach that temporarily and precisely altered electrical activity without destroying tissue or requiring surgery.
Dr. Lior Lev Tob, who heads functional neurosurgery at Rambam and leads the Israeli arm of the study, said the patient’s craving dropped sharply during the treatment itself. One week later, lab tests were negative for opioids and other substances, and the patient reported his urge to use the drug had fallen to zero out of 10. He also said his smoking fell from three packs a day to a minimal amount, and his urge to drink alcohol disappeared.
Lev Tob called it “a dramatic change that happened within minutes,” adding that the patient was completely freed from a severe dependence that had lasted for years. Researchers say the technique could have broader uses, including for OCD, PTSD, eating disorders, treatment-resistant depression, chronic pain, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, because it offers a noninvasive way to influence deep brain networks.
