The overall goal of this proposal is to develop a new process for more complete comminution of urinary calculi (stones) by combining histotripsy acoustic fields with conventional shockwaves. Preliminary evidence shows that histotripsy and lithotripsy can operate synergistically in multiple ways to enhance stone fragmentation. Histotripsy ultrasound therapy is a method of soft tissue ablation where extremely intense acoustic bursts cause microscopic bubbles to form and collapse energetically (cavitation) disrupting cell membranes and fragmenting nearby tissues. Using short bursts up to a few tens of acoustic cycles and highly focused sound fields allows cavitation to be controlled for precise ablation. Histotripsy research has yielded a greater understanding of acoustically generated cavitation and techniques for the enhancement and suppression of cavitation activity, which have been employed to increase the ablation rate and to protect adjacent tissue from collateral injury. When applied directly to stones, histotripsy produces rapid surface erosion with the generation of only microscopic debris. In combination with shockwaves, cavitation amplifying histotripsy sequences are expected to enhance stone comminution while suppressing sequences will actively protect surrounding kidney parenchyma from damage. While shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) has been an invaluable tool in the treatment of urinary stones, success rates have been consistently worse than more invasive interventions. SWL fails to achieve stone free status in 20-40% of patients at 3 month follow up and even successful procedures may involve the painful passage of fragments which have been only partially disintegrated. Large stones (> 20 mm diameter), stones of difficult composition (i.e. cystine), and stones located in the lower pole all have worse outcomes further discouraging treatment with SWL. Using histotripsy to control the cavitation environment immediately near a stone and in neighboring tissues allows a decoupling of cavitational and non-cavitational SWL mechanisms otherwise closely intertwined. This will aid in their study and optimization ultimately leading to more efficient stone comminution strategies producing better treatment outcomes and opening up traditionally difficult stones to the option of SWL.
Urinary stones afflict an estimated 5-10% of Americans at some point in their lifetime. The preferred non- invasive treatment (shockwave lithotripsy) is only successful for 60-80% of patients. We seek to develop a new non-invasive ultrasound treatment, which will achieve much higher success rates.
| Shi, Aiwei; Xu, Zhen; Lundt, Jonathan et al. (2018) Integrated Histotripsy and Bubble Coalescence Transducer for Rapid Tissue Ablation. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 65:1822-1831 |
| Alavi Tamaddoni, Hedieh; Roberts, William W; Duryea, Alexander P et al. (2016) Enhanced High-Rate Shockwave Lithotripsy Stone Comminution in an In Vivo Porcine Model Using Acoustic Bubble Coalescence. J Endourol 30:1321-1325 |
| Duryea, Alexander P; Tamaddoni, Hedieh A; Cain, Charles A et al. (2015) Removal of residual nuclei following a cavitation event: a parametric study. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 62:1605-14 |
| Khokhlova, Vera A; Fowlkes, J Brian; Roberts, William W et al. (2015) Histotripsy methods in mechanical disintegration of tissue: towards clinical applications. Int J Hyperthermia 31:145-62 |
| Duryea, Alexander P; Cain, Charles A; Roberts, William W et al. (2015) Removal of residual cavitation nuclei to enhance histotripsy fractionation of soft tissue. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 62:2068-78 |
| Duryea, Alexander P; Roberts, William W; Cain, Charles A et al. (2015) Removal of residual cavitation nuclei to enhance histotripsy erosion of model urinary stones. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 62:896-904 |
| Lin, Kuang-Wei; Hall, Timothy L; Xu, Zhen et al. (2015) Histotripsy Lesion Formation Using an Ultrasound Imaging Probe Enabled by a Low-Frequency Pump Transducer. Ultrasound Med Biol 41:2148-60 |
| Vlaisavljevich, Eli; Maxwell, Adam; Warnez, Matthew et al. (2014) Histotripsy-induced cavitation cloud initiation thresholds in tissues of different mechanical properties. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 61:341-52 |
| Kim, Yohan; Maxwell, Adam D; Hall, Timothy L et al. (2014) Rapid prototyping fabrication of focused ultrasound transducers. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 61:1559-74 |
| Lin, Kuang-Wei; Duryea, Alexander P; Kim, Yohan et al. (2014) Dual-beam histotripsy: a low-frequency pump enabling a high-frequency probe for precise lesion formation. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 61:325-40 |
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