Study on cavitation behavior during high-intensity focused ultrasound exposure by using optical and ultrasonic imaging

Cavitation bubbles are known to enhance the heating effect of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). In our previous study, the use of a "triggered HIFU" sequence consisting of a high-intensity pulse and a relatively low-intensity burst was proposed as an effective method to utilize the effect of cavitation bubbles. However, the duration of each component in the sequence has not been optimized. In this study, optical imaging was carried out to observe the behavior of cavitation bubbles in a gel phantom during the triggered HIFU exposure. Ultrasound imaging using the pulse inversion method was also conducted to detect the behavior of the bubbles. The results suggest that the oscillation of cavitation bubbles become inactive as the duration of HIFU burst exposure increases to the order of 10ms. It was also suggested that ultrasonic imaging has potential use for detecting a change in the oscillation of cavitation bubbles for optimizing a triggered HIFU sequence.