3D-printed adaptive acoustic lens as a disruptive technology for transcranial ultrasound therapy using single-element transducers. (16th January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Maimbourg, Guillaume; Houdouin, Alexandre; Deffieux, Thomas; Tanter, Mickael; Aubry, Jean-François
• Is Part Of: Physics in medicine & biology. Volume 63:Number 2(2018:Jan.)
• Publication Date: 2018-01-16
• Subjects: transcranial therapy -- focused ultrasound -- patient-specific acoustic lens -- single-element transducer; Biophysics -- Periodicals; Medical physics -- Periodicals; 610.153
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6560/aaa037
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0031-9155

Abstract

Abstract: The development of multi-element arrays for better control of the shape of ultrasonic beams has opened the way for focusing through highly aberrating media, such as the human skull. As a result, the use of brain therapy with transcranial-focused ultrasound has rapidly grown. Although effective, such technology is expensive. We propose a disruptive, low-cost approach that consists of focusing a 1 MHz ultrasound beam through a human skull with a single-element transducer coupled with a tailored silicone acoustic lens cast in a 3D-printed mold and designed using computed tomography-based numerical acoustic simulation. We demonstrate on N = 3 human skulls that adding lens-based aberration correction to a single-element transducer increases the deposited energy on the target 10 fold.