RESUMO
The presence of a rib cage is a significant hindrance to the potential applications of focused ultrasound as a noninvasive extracorporeal surgery modality for various internal organs. Here the influence of ribs on the propagation of strongly focused high-intensity nonlinear ultrasound beam inside the body is studied. Based on the spheroidal beam equation, a three-dimensional numerical algorithm is developed to solve the nonlinear acoustic field generated by a focused ultrasonic transducer with a large aperture angle. Idealized ribs, of rectangular cross sectional, with high absorption and impedance, and various dimensions, are used to simulate human anatomical configurations. The changes in the spatial distribution of acoustic intensity and the reduction of the acoustic pressure amplitude and heat deposition rate due to the presence of "ribs" are investigated. It is somewhat surprising that in some cases, the axial peak positions shift less than 2 mm and more than 80% of the sound energy can propagate through the space of the rib cage in the strongly focused sound field. This study also includes quantitative analyses of the effects of different rib configurations and transducers of various f-numbers. The results can be used as reference information for further study and clinical applications.
Assuntos
Simulação por Computador , Ablação por Ultrassom Focalizado de Alta Intensidade/métodos , Modelos Biológicos , Dinâmica não Linear , Análise Numérica Assistida por Computador , Costelas/anatomia & histologia , Som , Ultrassom/métodos , Absorção , Algoritmos , Desenho de Equipamento , Ablação por Ultrassom Focalizado de Alta Intensidade/instrumentação , Humanos , Movimento (Física) , Pressão , Fatores de Tempo , Transdutores , Ultrassom/instrumentaçãoRESUMO
This paper investigates the shock formation distance in a bounded sound beam of finite amplitude by solving the Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov (KZK) equation using frequency-domain numerical method. Simulation results reveal that, besides the nonlinearity and absorption, the diffraction is another important factor that affects the shock formation of a bounded sound beam. More detailed discussions of the shock formation in a bounded sound beam, such as the waveform of sound pressure and the spatial distribution of shock formation, are also presented and compared for different parameters.