Purpose

Burst wave lithotripsy (BWL) is a new technology in development to fragment urinary stones. Ultrasonic propulsion (UP) is a separate technology under investigation for displacing stones. We measure the effect of propulsion pulses on stone fragmentation from BWL.

Materials and Methods

Two artificial stone models (crystalline calcite, BegoStone plaster) and human calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) stones measuring 5 to 8 mm were subjected to ultrasound exposures in a polyvinyl chloride tissue phantom within a water bath. Stones were exposed to BWL with and without propulsion pulses interleaved for set time intervals depending on stone type. Fragmentation was measured as a fraction of the initial stone mass fragmented to pieces smaller than 2 mm.

Results

BegoStone model comminution improved from 6% to 35% (p < 0.001) between BWL and BWL with interleaved propulsion in a 10-minute exposure. Propulsion alone did not fragment stones, whereas addition of propulsion after BWL slightly improved BegoStone model comminution from 6% to 11% (p < 0.001). BegoStone model fragmentation increased with rate of propulsion pulses. Calcite stone fragmentation improved from 24% to 39% in 5 minutes (p = 0.047) and COM stones improved from 17% to 36% (p = 0.01) with interleaved propulsion.

Conclusions

BWL with UP improved stone fragmentation compared with BWL alone in vitro. The improvement was greatest when propulsion pulses are interleaved with BWL treatment and when propulsion pulses are applied at a higher rate. Thus, UP may be a useful adjunct to enhance fragmentation in lithotripsy in vivo.

Multi-element ultrasound arrays are increasingly used in clinical practice for both imaging and therapy. In therapy, they allow electronic steering, aberration correction, and focusing. To avoid grating lobes, an important requirement for such an array is the absence of periodicity in the arrangement of the elements. A convenient solution is the arrangement of the elements along spirals. The objective of this work was to design, fabricate, and characterize an array for boiling histotripsy applications that is capable of generating shock waves in the focus of up to 100 MPa peak pressure while having a reasonable electronic steering range.

The use of shock waves for enhancing thermal effects and mechanically ablating tissue is gaining increased attention in high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) applications such as tumor treatment, drug delivery, noninvasive biopsy, and immunotherapy. For abdominal targets, the presence of ribs and inhomogeneous adipose tissue can affect shock formation through aberration, absorption, and diffraction. The goal of this study was to design and validate a phantom for investigating the impact of different tissue structures on shock formation in situ. A transducer with driving electronics was developed to operate at 1.2 MHz with the ability to deliver either short pulses at high powers (up to 5 kW electric power) or continuous output at moderate powers (up to 700 W). Fat and muscle layers were represented by phantoms made from polyvinyl alcohol. Ribs were 3D-printed from a photopolymer material based on 3D CT scan images. Representative targeted tissue was comprised of optically transparent alginate or polyacrylamide gels. The system was characterized by hydrophone measurements free-field in water and in the presence of a body wall or rib phantoms. Shocked waveforms with peak positive/negative pressures of +100 / –20 MPa were measured at the focus in a free field at 1 kW electric source power. When ribs were present, shocks formed at about 50% amplitude at the same power, and higher pressures were measured with ribs positioned closer to the transducer. A uniform body wall structure attenuated shock amplitudes by a smaller amount than non-uniform, and the measurements were insensitive to the axial position of the phantom. Signal magnitude loss at the focus for both the rib phantoms and abdominal wall tissue were consistent with results from real tissues. In addition, boiling histotripsy lesions were generated and visualized in the target gels. The results demonstrate that the presence of ribs and absorptive tissue-mimicking layers do not prevent shock formation at the focus. With real-time lesion visualization, the phantom is suitable for adaptation as a training tool.

Burst wave lithotripsy (BWL) is an experimental method to noninvasively fragment urinary calculi using low-frequency focused bursts of ultrasound. To optimize many of the acoustic parameters for this technology, it is necessary to understand the physical interactions between ultrasound bursts and stones. In this study, the interaction of elastic waves with model stones was simulated and experimentally visualized by photoelastography, a technique using polarized light to spatially and temporally visualize stress patterns.

Boiling histotripsy (BH) is a method of focused ultrasound surgery that noninvasively applies millisecond-length pulses with high-amplitude shock fronts to generate liquefied lesions in tissue. Such a technique requires unique outputs compared to a focused ultrasound thermal therapy apparatus, particularly to achieve high in situ pressure levels through intervening tissue. This paper describes the design and characterization of a system capable of producing the necessary pressure to transcutaneously administer BH therapy through clinically relevant overlying tissue paths using pulses with duration up to 10 ms. A high-voltage electronic pulser was constructed to drive a 1-MHz focused ultrasound transducer to produce shock waves with amplitude capable of generating boiling within the pulse duration in tissue. The system output was characterized by numerical modeling with the 3-D Westervelt equation using boundary conditions established by acoustic holography measurements of the source field. Such simulations were found to be in agreement with directly measured focal waveforms. An existing derating method for nonlinear therapeutic fields was used to estimate in situ pressure levels at different tissue depths. The system was tested in ex vivo bovine liver samples to create BH lesions at depths up to 7 cm. Lesions were also created through excised porcine body wall (skin, adipose, and muscle) with 3–5 cm thickness. These results indicate that the system is capable of producing the necessary output for transcutaneous ablation with BH.

Therapeutic ultrasound can drive bubble activity that damages soft tissues. To study the potential mechanisms of such injury, transparent agar tissue-mimicking phantoms were subjected to multiple pressure wave bursts of the kind being considered specifically for burst wave lithotripsy. A high-speed camera recorded bubble activity during each pulse. Various agar concentrations were used to alter the phantom's mechanical properties, especially its stiffness, which was varied by a factor of 3.5. However, the maximum observed bubble radius was insensitive to stiffness. During 1000 wave bursts of a candidate burst wave lithotripsy treatment, bubbles appeared continuously in a region that expanded slowly, primarily toward the transducer. Denser bubble clouds are formed at higher pulse repetition frequency. The specific observations are used to inform the incorporation of damage mechanisms into cavitation models for soft materials.

Various clinical applications of high-intensity focused ultrasound have different requirements for the pressure levels and degree of nonlinear waveform distortion at the focus. The goal of this paper is to determine transducer design parameters that produce either a specified shock amplitude in the focal waveform or specified peak pressures while still maintaining quasi-linear conditions at the focus. Multiparametric nonlinear modeling based on the Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov (KZK) equation with an equivalent source boundary condition was employed. Peak pressures, shock amplitudes at the focus, and corresponding source outputs were determined for different transducer geometries and levels of nonlinear distortion. The results are presented in terms of the parameters of an equivalent single-element spherically shaped transducer. The accuracy of the method and its applicability to cases of strongly focused transducers were validated by comparing the KZK modeling data with measurements and nonlinear full diffraction simulations for a single-element source and arrays with 7 and 256 elements. The results provide look-up data for evaluating nonlinear distortions at the focus of existing therapeutic systems as well as for guiding the design of new transducers that generate specified nonlinear fields.

A generalized Rayleigh–Plesset-type bubble dynamics model with a damage mechanism is developed for cavitation and damage of soft materials by focused ultrasound bursts. This study is linked to recent experimental observations in tissue-mimicking polyacrylamide and agar gel phantoms subjected to bursts of a kind being considered specifically for lithotripsy. These show bubble activation at multiple sites during the initial pulses. More cavities appear continuously through the course of the observations, similar to what is deduced in pig kidney tissues in shock-wave lithotripsy. Two different material models are used to represent the distinct properties of the two gel materials. The polyacrylamide gel is represented with a neo-Hookean elastic model and damaged based upon a maximum-strain criterion; the agar gel is represented with a strain-hardening Fung model and damaged according to the strain-energy-based Griffith's fracture criterion. Estimates based upon independently determined elasticity and viscosity of the two gel materials suggest that bubble confinement should be sufficient to prevent damage in the gels, and presumably injury in some tissues. Damage accumulation is therefore proposed to occur via a material fatigue, which is shown to be consistent with observed delays in widespread cavitation activity.

In medical and industrial ultrasound, it is often necessary to measure the acoustic properties of a material. A specific medical application requires measurements of sound speed, attenuation, and nonlinearity to characterize livers being evaluated for transplantation. For this application, a transmission-mode caliper device is proposed in which both transmit and receive transducers are directly coupled to a test sample, the propagation distance is measured with an indicator gage, and receive waveforms are recorded for analysis. In this configuration, accurate measurements of nonlinearity present particular challenges: diffraction effects can be considerable while nonlinear distortions over short distances typically remain small. To enable simple estimates of the nonlinearity coeffcient from a quasi-linear approximation to the lossless Burgers’ equation, the calipers utilize a large transmitter and plane waves are measured at distances of 15–50 mm. Waves at 667 kHz and pressures between 0.1 and 1 MPa were generated and measured in water at different distances; the nonlinearity coeffcient of water was estimated from these measurements with a variability of approximately 10%. Ongoing efforts seek to test caliper performance in other media and improve accuracy via additional transducer calibrations.

Various clinical applications of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) have different requirements on the pressure level and degree of nonlinear waveform distortion at the focus. Applications that utilize nonlinear waves with developed shocks are of growing interest, for example, for mechanical disintegration as well as for accelerated thermal ablation of tissue. In this work, an inverse problem of determining transducer parameters to enable formation of shocks with desired amplitude at the focus is solved. The solution was obtained by performing multiple direct simulations of the parabolic Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya–Kuznetsov (KZK) equation for various parameters of the source. It is shown that results obtained within the parabolic approximation can be used to describe the focal region of single element spherical sources as well as complex transducer arrays. It is also demonstrated that the focal pressure level at which fully developed shocks are formed mainly depends on the focusing angle of the source and only slightly depends on its aperture and operating frequency. Using the simulation results, a 256-element HIFU array operating at 1.5 MHz frequency was designed for a specific application of boiling-histotripsy that relies on the presence of 90–100 MPa shocks at the focus. The size of the array elements and focusing angle of the array were chosen to satisfy technical limitations on the intensity at the array elements and desired shock amplitudes in the focal waveform. Focus steering capabilities of the array were analysed using an open-source T-Array software developed at Moscow State University.

Histotripsy therapy produces cavitating bubble clouds to increasingly fractionate and eventually liquefy tissue using high-intensity ultrasound pulses. Following cavitation generated by each pulse, coherent motion of the cavitation residual nuclei can be detected using metrics formed from ultrasound color Doppler acquisitions. In this paper, three experiments were performed to investigate the characteristics of this motion as real-time feedback on histotripsy tissue fractionation. In the first experiment, bubble-induced color Doppler (BCD) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) analysis monitored the residual cavitation nuclei in the treatment region in an agarose tissue phantom treated with two-cycle histotripsy pulses at >30 MPa using a 500-kHz transducer. Both BCD and PIV results showed brief chaotic motion of the residual nuclei followed by coherent motion first moving away from the transducer and then rebounding back. Velocity measurements from both PIV and BCD agreed well, showing a monotonic increase in rebound time up to a saturation point for increased therapy dose. In a second experiment, a thin layer of red blood cells (RBC) was added to the phantom to allow quantification of the fractionation of the RBC layer to compare with BCD metrics. A strong linear correlation was observed between the fractionation level and the time to BCD peak rebound velocity over histotripsy treatment. Finally, the correlation between BCD feedback and histotripsy tissue fractionation was validated in ex vivo porcine liver evaluated histologically. BCD metrics showed strong linear correlation with fractionation progression, suggesting that BCD provides useful quantitative real-time feedback on histotripsy treatment progression.

In high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy, an ultrasound beam is focused within the body to locally affect the targeted site without damaging intervening tissues. The most common HIFU regime is thermal ablation. Recently there has been increasing interest in generating purely mechanical lesions in tissue (histotripsy). This paper provides an overview of several studies on the development of histotripsy methods toward clinical applications. Two histotripsy approaches and examples of their applications are presented. In one approach, sequences of high-amplitude, short (microsecond-long), focused ultrasound pulses periodically produce dense, energetic bubble clouds that mechanically disintegrate tissue. In an alternative approach, longer (millisecond-long) pulses with shock fronts generate boiling bubbles and the interaction of shock fronts with the resulting vapour cavity causes tissue disintegration. Recent preclinical studies on histotripsy are reviewed for treating benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), liver and kidney tumours, kidney stone fragmentation, enhancing anti-tumour immune response, and tissue decellularisation for regenerative medicine applications. Potential clinical advantages of the histotripsy methods are discussed. Histotripsy methods can be used to mechanically ablate a wide variety of tissues, whilst selectivity sparing structures such as large vessels. Both ultrasound and MR imaging can be used for targeting and monitoring the treatment in real time. Although the two approaches utilise different mechanisms for tissue disintegration, both have many of the same advantages and offer a promising alternative method of non-invasive surgery.

Purpose
We have developed a new method of lithotripsy that uses short, broadly focused bursts of ultrasound rather than shock waves to fragment stones. This study investigated the characteristics of stone comminution by burst wave lithotripsy in vitro.

Materials and Methods
Artificial and natural stones (mean 8.2±3.0 mm, range 5–15 mm) were treated with ultrasound bursts using a focused transducer in a water bath. Stones were exposed to bursts with focal pressure amplitude 𕟮.5 MPa at 200 Hz burst repetition rate until completely fragmented. Ultrasound frequencies of 170 kHz, 285 kHz, and 800 kHz were applied using 3 different transducers. The time to achieve fragmentation for each stone type was recorded, and fragment size distribution was measured by sieving.

Results
Stones exposed to ultrasound bursts were fragmented at focal pressure amplitudes 𕟴.8 MPa at 170 kHz. Fractures appeared along the stone surface, resulting in fragments separating at the surface nearest to the transducer until the stone was disintegrated. All natural and artificial stones were fragmented at the highest focal pressure of 6.5 MPa with treatment durations between a mean of 36 seconds for uric acid to 14.7 minutes for cystine stones. At a frequency of 170 kHz, the largest artificial stone fragments were <4 mm. Exposures at 285 kHz produced only fragments <2 mm, and 800 kHz produced only fragments <1 mm.

Conclusions
Stone comminution with burst wave lithotripsy is feasible as a potential noninvasive treatment method for nephrolithiasis. Adjusting the fundamental ultrasound frequency allows control of stone fragment size.

Burst wave lithotripsy is a novel technology that uses focused, sinusoidal bursts of ultrasound to fragment kidney stones. Prior research laid the groundwork to design an extracorporeal, image-guided probe for in-vivo testing and potentially human clinical testing. Toward this end, a 12-element 330 kHz array transducer was designed and built. The probe frequency, geometry, and shape were designed to break stones up to 1 cm in diameter into fragments <2 mm. A custom amplifier capable of generating output bursts up to 3 kV was built to drive the array. To facilitate image guidance, the transducer array was designed with a central hole to accommodate co-axial attachment of an HDI P4-2 probe. Custom B-mode and Doppler imaging sequences were developed and synchronized on a Verasonics ultrasound engine to enable real-time stone targeting and cavitation detection, Preliminary data suggest that natural stones will exhibit Doppler %u201Ctwinkling%u201D artifact in the BWL focus and that the Doppler power increases as the stone begins to fragment. This feedback allows accurate stone targeting while both types of imaging sequences can also detect cavitation in bulk tissue that may lead to injury.

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of performing noninvasive puncture of pediatric ureteroceles with cavitation-based focused ultrasound (US) (histotripsy).

Materials and Methods: A model for the ureterocele wall was developed from an excised bovine bladder wall. The model was exposed to focused US pulses in a water bath under three different US parameter sets for up to 300 seconds to create localized perforations in the wall. B-mode US imaging was used to monitor the treatment and assess potential imaging guidance and feedback.

Results: Punctures were formed between 46–300 seconds, depending on the focused US exposure parameters and model wall thickness. Puncture diameter was controllable through choice of exposure parameters and could be varied between 0.8–2.8%u2009mm mean diameter. US-induced cavitation was visible on B-mode imaging, which provided targeting and treatment feedback.

Conclusions: Cavitation-based focused US can create punctures in a model that mimics the tissue properties of a ureterocele wall, under guidance from US imaging.

Nonlinear propagation effects are present in most fields generated by high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) sources. In some newer HIFU applications, these effects are strong enough to result in the formation of high amplitude shocks that actually determine the therapy and provide a means for imaging. However, there is no standard approach yet accepted to address these effects. Here, a set of combined measurement and modeling methods to characterize nonlinear HIFU fields in water and predict acoustic pressures in tissue is presented. A characterization method includes linear acoustic holography measurements to set a boundary condition to the model and nonlinear acoustic simulations in water for increasing pressure levels at the source. A derating method to determine nonlinear focal fields with shocks in situ is based on the scaling of the source pressure for data obtained in water to compensate for attenuation losses in tissue. The accuracy of the methods is verified by comparing the results with hydrophone and time-to-boil measurements. Major effects associated with the formation of shocks are overviewed. A set of metrics for determining thermal and mechanical bioeffects is introduced and application of the proposed tools to strongly nonlinear HIFU applications is discussed.

Shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) is the most common procedure for treatment of kidney stones. SWL noninvasively delivers high-energy focused shocks to fracture stones into passable fragments. We have recently observed that lower-amplitude, sinusoidal bursts of ultrasound can generate similar fracture of stones. This work investigated the characteristics of stone fragmentation for natural (uric acid, struvite, calcium oxalate, and cystine) and artificial stones treated by ultrasound bursts. Stones were fixed in position in a degassed water tank and exposed to 10-cycle bursts from a 200-kHz transducer with a pressure amplitude of p ≤ 6.5 MPa, delivered at a rate of 40–200 Hz. Exposures caused progressive fractures in the stone surface leading to fragments up to 3 mm. Treatment of artificial stones at different frequencies exhibited an inverse relationship between the resulting fragment sizes and ultrasound frequency. All artificial and natural types of stones tested could be fragmented, but the comminution rate varied significantly with stone composition over a range of 12–630 mg/min. These data suggest that stones can be controllably fragmented by sinusoidal ultrasound bursts, which may offer an alternative treatment strategy to SWL.

The use of projection methods is increasingly accepted as a standard way of characterizing the 3D fields generated by medical ultrasound sources. When combined with hydrophone measurements of pressure amplitude and phase over a surface transverse to the wave propagation, numerical projection can be used to reconstruct 3D fields that account for operational details and imperfections of the source. Here, we use holography measurements to characterize the fields generated by two array transducers with different geometries and modes of operation. First, a seven-element, high-power therapy transducer is characterized in the continuous-wave regime using holography measurements and nonlinear forward-projection calculations. Second, a C5-2 imaging probe (Philips Healthcare) with 128 elements is characterized in the transient regime using holography measurements and linear projection calculations. Results from the numerical projections for both sources are compared with independent hydrophone measurements of select waveforms, including shocked focal waveforms for the therapy transducer. Accurate 3D field representations have been confirmed, though a notable sensitivity to hydrophone calibrations is revealed. Uncertainties associated with this approach are discussed toward the development of holography measurements combined with numerical projections as a standard metrological tool.

Previous studies have provided insight into the physical mechanisms of stone fracture in shock wave lithotripsy. Broadly focused shocks efficiently generate shear waves in the stone leading to internal tensile stresses, which in concert with cavitation at the stone surface, cause cracks to form and propagate. Here, we propose a separate mechanism by which stones may fragment from sinusoidal ultrasound bursts without shocks. A numerical elastic wave model was used to simulate propagation of tone bursts through a cylindrical stone at a frequency between 0.15 and 2 MHz. Results suggest that bursts undergo mode conversion into surface waves on the stone that continually create significant stresses well after the exposure is terminated. Experimental exposures of artificial cylindrical stones to focused burst waves in vitro produced periodic fractures along the stone surface. The fracture spacing and resulting fragment sizes corresponded well with the spacing of stresses caused by surface waves in simulation at different frequencies. These results indicate surface waves may be an important factor in fragmentation of stones by focused tone bursts and suggest that the resulting stone fragment sizes may be controlled by ultrasound frequency.

Histotripsy treatments use high-amplitude shock waves to fractionate tissue. Such treatments have been demonstrated using both cavitation bubbles excited with microsecond-long pulses and boiling bubbles excited for milliseconds. A common feature of both approaches is the need for bubble growth, where at 1 MHz cavitation bubbles reach maximum radii on the order of 100 microns and boiling bubbles grow to about 1 mm. To explore how histotripsy bubbles grow, a model of a single, spherical bubble that accounts for heat and mass transport was used to simulate the bubble dynamics. Results suggest that the asymmetry inherent in nonlinearly distorted waveforms can lead to rectified bubble growth, which is enhanced at elevated temperatures. Moreover, the rate of this growth is sensitive to the waveform shape, in particular the transition from the peak negative pressure to the shock front. Current efforts are focused on elucidating this behavior by obtaining an improved calibration of measured histotripsy waveforms with a fiber-optic hydrophone, using a nonlinear propagation model to assess the impact on the focal waveform of higher harmonics present at the source's surface, and photographically observing bubble growth rates.