Background/introduction Anti-tumor immune response caused by High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) therapy has been a subject of controversy. Most agree that the response is more likely to be induced by mechanical, rather than thermal effects of HIFU. The goal of the current work was to study the effect of HIFU-induced liquefaction of a tumor on tumor-specific and non-specific T-cell mediate...

BACKGROUND High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a promising, non-invasive technique in treating benign thyroid nodules (TNs). The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of HIFU to induce clinically meaningful shrinkage in benign predominantly solid TNs and to identify variables that influence or predict the magnitude of TN volume reduction. METHODS For each of ten subjects, HIF...

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Background/introduction CT scans have been used to refocus ultrasound for clinical transcranial MRI-guided focused ultrasound (TcMRgFUS). The refocusing of the ultrasound arrays is a crucial step in TcMRgFUS therapy because skulls distort sound beams due to the ununiformed shape and composition of the bone. CT scan based algorithms have been developed to estimate the phase shifts induced by the...

Ultrasound (US) is used in the clinical setting not only for diagnosis but also for therapy. As a therapeutic US technique, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can be applied to treat cancer in a clinical setting. Microbubbles increased temperature and improved the low therapeutic efficiency under HIFU; however, microbubbles have room for improvement in size, stability, and targeting abili...

A new approach for characterizing high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) transducers is presented. The technique is based upon the acoustic streaming field generated by absorption of the HIFU beam in a liquid medium. The streaming field is quantified using digital particle image velocimetry, and a numerical algorithm is employed to compute the acoustic intensity field giving rise to the obser...

To treat Glioblastoma, we recently proposed the use of hyperthermia plus radiation. Hyperthermia was generated by a transcranial, MR guided, high intensity focused ultrasound device (TcMRgFUS). To obtain this result, minimal modifications of this device, primarily conceived for small volume ablation, were required, in particular reduction of the single-pulse power and a change of the pulse shap...

Background/introduction MR imaging-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (MRIgFUS) is a novel, noninvasive technique for the treatment of functional brain disorders through the intact human skull at millimeter precision. The ExAblate 4000 transcranial MRIgFUS system (InSightec, Haifa, Israel) uses a 1024-element phased array transducer, which is attached to the patient’s head via a standard ...