Simultaneous Ultrasound Therapy and Monitoring of Microbubble-Seeded Acoustic Cavitation Using a Single-Element Transducer
File(s)TUFFC2718513.pdf (12.46 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Heymans, Sophie V
Martindale, Christine F
Suler, Andrej
Pouliopoulos, Antonios N
Dickinson, Robert J
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Ultrasound-driven microbubble (MB) activity is used in therapeutic applications such as blood clot dissolution and targeted drug delivery. The safety and performance of these technologies are linked to the type and distribution of MB activities produced within the targeted area, but controlling and monitoring these activities in vivo and in real time has proven to be difficult. As therapeutic pulses are often milliseconds long, MB monitoring currently requires a separate transducer used in a passive reception mode. Here, we present a simple, inexpensive, integrated setup, in which a focused single-element transducer can perform ultrasound therapy and monitoring simultaneously. MBs were made to flow through a vesselmimicking tube, placed within the transducer's focus, and were sonicated with therapeutic pulses (peak rarefactional pressure: 75-827 kPa, pulse lengths: 200 μs and 20 ms). The MB-seeded acoustic emissions were captured using the same transducer. The received signals were separated from the therapeutic signal with a hybrid coupler and a high-pass filter. We discriminated the MB-generated cavitation signal from the primary acoustic field and characterized MB behavior in real time. The simplicity and versatility of our circuit could make existing single-element therapeutic transducers also act as cavitation detectors, allowing the production of compact therapeutic systems with real time monitoring capabilities.
Date Issued
2017-06-22
Date Acceptance
2017-06-16
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, 2017, 64 (8), pp.1234-1244
ISSN
0885-3010
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
1234
End Page
1244
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control
Volume
64
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Sponsor
Wellcome Trust
Grant Number
097816/Z/11/B
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Acoustics
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Engineering
Acoustic cavitation
hybrid coupler
microbubbles (MBs)
single-element transducer
ultrasound therapy
BLOOD-BRAIN-BARRIER
DRUG-DELIVERY
FOCUSED-ULTRASOUND
CONTRAST AGENTS
SHORT-PULSE
IN-VIVO
ENHANCEMENT
DISRUPTION
FREQUENCY
FLOW
Publication Status
Published