Effects of cavitation-enhanced heating in high-intensity focused ultrasound treatment on shear wave imaging

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy is a less invasive method of cancer treatment, in which ultrasound is generated outside the body and focused at the tumor tissue to be thermally coagulated. To enhance the safety, accuracy, and efficiency of HIFU therapy, "multiple-triggered HIFU" has been proposed as a method of cavitation-enhanced heating to shorten treatment time. In this study, we also propose shear wave elastography (SWE) to noninvasively monitor the cavitation-enhanced heating. Results show that the increase in shear wave velocity was observed in the coagulation area, but it was significantly slower when cavitation occurred. This suggests that the cavitation-enhanced heating requires a significantly longer cooling time before the accurate measurement of shear modulus than heating without generating bubbles.