High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) has the potential to improve cancer treatment through tumor ablation and occlusion of tumor vasculature. In order to maximize the efficacy of HIFU procedures, and to minimize the damage to healthy tissue, it is important to predict tissue response by quantifying temperature rise, in conjunction with characterization of blood flow, during absorption of HIFU energy. A gap in knowledge is that the temperature rise during HIFU has not been quantified during energy absorption for patient-specific patho-physiological conditions having the ultrasound beam focused near a large blood vessel and having variable blood perfusion in tissues.
The specific objective of this NSF-FDA Scholar-In-Residence proposal is to establish tissue temperature response using in-vitro, ex-vivo, and computational models, which can accurately quantify blood flow in large vessels. The central hypothesis is that temperature rise can be correlated to variable HIFU energy sources while accounting for tissue perfusion and convection through large vessels.
This research project combines biofluids, bioheat transfer, mass transfer, and biology to create a virtual tool for the simulation of HIFU that would focus and optimize HIFU in patient-specific geometries by considering the effects of interfering blood vessels. This multi-disciplinary project involves several scientific fields including Engineering, Physics, Biology, and Physiology.
