Image-based analysis of boiling histotripsy: depending on agar concentration and acoustic parameters

Abstract

Histotripsy is a promising approach to mechanically and non-invasively fragmenting the local tissue using the cavitational effects of bubbles. A proper determination of pulsing protocols is essential to induce more accurate and fine mechanical ablation. However, uniform and reproducible target ablation is somewhat difficult due to the different physical properties depending on the type of tissues. Therefore, a more comprehensive understanding of ablation potential in histotripsy is required by analyzing the mutual relationship between the physical properties of target and pulsing protocols. Here we report the ablation potential of histotripsy in agar-based gel with different physical properties (1, 3, and 5%) and employ different pulsing protocols (pressure and pulse length). All analyses of mechanical ablation are performed by imaging the morphological information of the lesion.