Monitoring of lesion induced by high-intensity focused ultrasound using correlation method based on block matching

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a noninvasive therapeutic application that focuses ultrasound to the target tissue, such as a malignant tumor, and thermally coagulates it. Monitoring methods for evaluating the formation of thermal lesions induced by HIFU are required to perform safe and accurate HIFU treatment. However, the conventional ultrasonic B-mode image incurs difficulties in assessing the formation of HIFUinduced lesions. In this study, ultrasound RF signals were acquired during HIFU exposure. A correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the changes occurring in the RF signals backscattered from the thermal lesion. Also, a block matching algorithm has been implemented to compensate the tissue motion during HIFU exposure. The experimental results show that correlation coefficients in the focal spot decreased significantly with HIFU exposure, which indicates that the backscattered RF signals changed owing to tissue coagulation.