A team of engineers and veterinarians are working together to develop a wearable device that would allow histotripsy to be performed safely on horses.

A new clinical trial targeting sarcoids — the most common and persistent equine skin tumor — could advance noninvasive tumor therapies for both animals and people.

There is no “one-fix-for-all” solution for sarcoids, said Sophie Bogers, an assistant professor of large animal surgery.

Many of them require chemotherapy or invasive surgery.

Elsewhere on the Virginia Tech campus, in biomedical engineer Eli Vlaisavljevich's lab, a colleague has what may be that better solution: A technology called histotripsy that uses focused ultrasound to produce a bubble cloud that can break down tumor tissue.

This spring, their system got its first real test on a horse named Pea, a 9-year-old Hanoverian mare who had a tumor on her belly.

"She wa…