Tissue erosion using millisecond boiling in high-intensity focused ultrasound fields

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) transducers can be operated at high-pressure amplitudes of greater than 60 MPa and low-duty cycles of 1% or less to induce controlled bubble activity that fractionates tissue. The goal of this work was to investigate fractionation not from mechanically induced cavitation but from thermally induced boiling created by HIFU shock waves. Experiments were performed using a 2-MHz HIFU source. The focus was placed in ex vivo bovine heart and liver samples. Cavitation and boiling were monitored during exposures using a high-voltage probe in parallel with the HIFU source and with an ultrasound imaging system. Various exposure protocols were performed in which the time-averaged intensity and total energy delivered were maintained constant. The types of lesions induced in tissue ranged from purely thermal to purely mechanical depending on the pulsing protocol used. A pulsing protocol in which the pulse length was on the order of the time to boil (of only several milliseconds) and duty cycle was low (