An instrumented bone/soft tissue phantom designed to mimic HIFU treatments of bone

Background/introduction Clinically, HIFU exposures of bone are used to palliate pain from primary or secondary bone tumours. Such tumours weaken bone structure and render the patient susceptible to bone fracture. Ultrasound metrology for bone exposures is extremely challenging. The ultrasound beam is strongly reflected at the bone surface, with rapid surface absorption of sound entering the cortex. Pain relief is obtained when the HIFU induced temperature increase ablates the peri-osteal nerves. Standard PRF based MR thermometry, used for treatment monitoring, is inappropriate for bone. Thus, a method of determining the temperature distribution in a clinical environment is needed.