The study of the interaction of bubbles with shock waves and ultrasound is sometimes termed 'acoustic cavitation'. It is of importance in many biomedical applications where sound waves are applied. The use of shock waves and ultrasound in medical treatments is appealing because of their non-invasiveness. In this review, we present a variety of acoustics-bubble interactions, with a focus on shoc...

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a method for non-invasive tumor therapy. The high energy density in the focal spot leads to local tissue heating and finally to thermal coagulation in the focal area (Fig.1) [1]. To monitor this treatment, the focus position can be detected online with temperature sensitive MR imaging. However characterization of the induced lesion is difficult. It ha...

As early as 1774, the application of ultrasound in animal world was noted by Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani, who discovered that bats move using ultrasonic waves [...]

We have simulated effects of a shock wave in water that would result from the collapse of a cavitation bubble on binding in model complexes. We have considered a benzene dimer, a pair of uracil molecules, a complex of fragments of the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis and caspase-9, and a fragment of c-Myc oncoprotein in binding with its dimerization partner Max. The effect of the shock waves was...

Noninvasive and targeted physical treatment is still desirable especially for those cancerous patients. Herein, we develop a new physical treatment protocol by employing CO2 bubbling-based 'nanobomb' system consisting of low-intensity ultrasound (1.0 W/cm(2)) and a well-constructed pH/temperature dual-responsive CO2 release system. Depending on the temperature elevation caused by exogenous low-...

This paper is based on material presented at the start of a Health Protection Agency meeting on ultrasound and infrasound. In answering the question 'what is ultrasound?', it shows that the simple description of a wave which transports mechanical energy through the local vibration of particles at frequencies of 20 kHz or more, with no net transport of the particles themselves, can in every resp...

HARMONIC IMAGING USING A MECHANICAL SECTOR, B-MODE ULTRASOUND SYSTEM by Danna Gurari ADVISOR: Dr. William D. Richard August 2005 Saint Louis Missouri An ultrasound imaging system includes transmitting ultrasound waves into a human body, collecting the reflections, manipulating the reflections, and then displaying them on computer screen as a grayscale image. The standard approach for ultrasound...

During an ultrasound scan, high frequency sound waves are produced by a transducer (the part of the machine which is placed on the body). The sound waves are passed into the body where they encounter structures (like your baby!). When this happens, the waves reflect back, and the sound (or echo) is detected electronically and transmitted onto a screen as a dot. This results in a picture being f...

This review discusses the development, current applications, and therapeutic potential of ultrasound contrast agents. Microbubbles containing gases act as true, intravascular indicators, permitting a noninvasive, quantitative analysis of the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of blood flow and volumes within the microvasculature. These shelled microbubbles are near-perfect reflectors of acousti...

The objective of this thesis is to develop a rigorous mathematical and numerical background for the extension and dissemination of imaging modalities by ultrasound, i.e. elastic waves, applied to the cardiac settings. The problems treated will concerned the topics of mathematical modeling, numerical analysis and scientific computing. More precisely we plan to define a linearized model for the p...