Evaluate thermal lesion using Nakagami imaging for monitoring of high-intensity focused ultrasound

Abstract

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is currently being developed as a noninvasive technique for the treatment of cancer located in various tissues. Cavitation microbubbles (MBs) have been potential to aid treatment while the acoustic posterior shadowing effects of MBs influence the accuracy for defining the location and range of ablated thermal lesions during focused ultrasound surgery when using ultrasonic monitoring imaging. This work explored the feasibility of using ultrasonic Nakagami imaging to evaluate the ablated region induced by focused ultrasound exposures at different acoustic power levels in transparent tissue-mimicking phantoms.