• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.16-23
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• 2020

In High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) treatment, effective localization of HIFU focus is important for developing a safe treatment plan. While Magnetic Resonance Imaging guided HIFU (MRIgHIFU) can visualize the ultrasound path during the treatment for localizing HIFU focus, it is challenging in ultrasound imaging guided HIFU (USIgHIFU). In the present study, a real-time ultrasound beam visualization technique capable of localizing HIFU focus is presented for USIgHIFU. In the proposed method, a short pulse, with the same center frequency of an imaging ultrasound transducer below the regulated acoustic intensity (i.e., Ispta < 720 mW/㎠), was transmitted through a HIFU transducer whereupon backscattered signals were received by the imaging transducer. To visualize the HIFU beam path, the backscattered signals underwent dynamic receive focusing and subsequent echo processing. From in vitro experiments with bovine serum albumin gel phantoms, the HIFU beam path was clearly depicted with low acoustic intensity (i.e., Ispta of 94.8 mW/㎠) and the HIFU focus was successfully localized before any damages were produced. This result indicates that the proposed ultrasound beam path visualization method can be used for localizing the HIFU focus in real time while minimizing unwanted tissue damage in USIgHIFU treatment.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.162-168
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• 2015

In this study, we suggested the performance and safety testing guideline for low intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) represented by the ultrasound fracture treatment device and cartilage treatment device and low intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) represented by ultrasonic face lifting device. For these study, the international standards and management regulations of Korea, Japan and United State were analyzed. And the usefulness and applicability were evaluated by testing with commercial equipment and reflecting the views of the industry and experts. As a result of this study, the safety and performance test guidelines for low intensity therapeutic ultrasound device were proposed by presenting the 10 items for LIPUS and 12 items for LIFU. The suggested guidelines are considered a high utilization in the domestic testing and approval authorities. And they are also thought to be useful to new technology development.

• Journal of the Korean Physical Society
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• v.73 no.9
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• pp.1289-1294
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• 2018

The present study aims to investigate experimentally and theoretically thermal ablation in soft tissues by using high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to assess tissue damage during HIFU thermotherapy. The HIFU field was calculated by solving the axisymmetric Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov equation from the frequency-domain perspective. The temperature field was calculated by solving Pennes' bioheat transfer equation, and the thermal dose required to create a thermal lesion was calculated by using the thermal dose formula based on the thermal dose of a 240-min exposure at $43^{\circ}C$. In order to validate the simulation results, we performed thermal ablation experiments in a tissue-mimicking phantom and ex-vivo porcine liver for two different HIFU source conditions by using a 1.1-MHz, single-element, spherically focused HIFU transducer. The small difference between the measured and the predicted lesion sizes suggests that the implementation of the numerical model used here should be modified to iteratively allow for temperature-dependent changes in the physical properties of tissues.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.369-374
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• 2022

Purpose: Focused ultrasound is an emerging technology for treating the brain locally in a noninvasive manner. In this study, we have investigated the influence of skull properties on simulating transcranial pressure field. Methods: A 3D computational model of transcranial focused ultrasound was constructed using female and male CT data to solve for intracranial pressure. For heterogeneous model, the acoustic properties were calculated from CT Hounsfield units based on a porosity. The homogeneous model assigned constant acoustic properties for the single-layered skull. Results: A computational model was validated against empirical data. The homogeneous models were then compared with the heterogeneous model, resulted in 10.87% and 7.19% differences in peak pressure for female and male models respectively. For the focal volume, homogeneous model demonstrated more than 94% overlap compared with the heterogeneous model. Conclusion: Homogeneous model can be constructed using MR images that are commonly used for the segmentation of the skull. We propose the possibility of the homogeneous model for the simulating transcranial pressure field owing to comparable focal volume between homogeneous model and heterogeneous model.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2006

This paper proposes an efficient array beamforming method using spatial matched filtering for ultrasound imaging. In the proposed method, ultrasound waves are transmitted from an array subaperture with fixed transmit focus as in conventional array imaging. At receive, radio frequency (RF) echo signals from each receive channel are passed through a spatial matched filter that is constructed based on the system transmit-receive spatial impulse response. The filtered echo signals are then summed. The filter remaps and spatially registers the acoustic energy from each element so that the pulse-echo impulse response of the summed output is focused with acceptably low side lobes. Analytical beam pattern analysis and simulation results using a linear array show that the proposed spatial filtering method can provide more improved spatial resolution and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) compared with conventional dynamic receive focusing (DRF) method by implementing two-way dynamically focused beam pattern throughout the field.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.39-47
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• 2019

Ultrasound sonication along with microbubble (MB) could enhance drug delivery to promote the absorption of anticancer drugs into cancers in a noninvasive and targeted manners. In this study, we verify the acute drug delivery enhancement (within an hour) of two representative focused ultrasound driven drug delivery enhancement methods (MB and Doxorubicin-coated Nanoparticle complex (MB-NP) based). Experiments were conducted using in vivo mouse model with MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line. Ultrasound generated by single-element 1 MHz focused ultrasound transducer was delivered in pulsed sonication consisted of 0.125 msec bursts at a pulse repetition frequency of 2 Hz for 20 seconds without a significant increase in local temperature (less than $0.1^{\circ}C$) or hemorrhage. Doxorubicin concentrations in tumors were improved by 1.97 times in the case of MB-NP, and 1.98 times by using Doxorubicin and MB separately. These results indicate anticancer drug delivery based on MB and MB-NP can significantly improve the effect of anticancer drugs delivered to tumors in a short time period by using low-intensity focused ultrasound.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2014

The temperature change due to focused ultrasound in dissipative acoustic medium is very important because it provides us much information. To measure the temperature change inside of the dissipative acoustic medium non-invasively, we adopt a temperature sensitive film which has thermochromic particles with critical temperature of $30^{\circ}C$. As a dissipative acoustic medium, agar layer is chosen in the study. The temperature change due to the ultrasound was measured depending on the concentration of the sugar in the agar layer. The color change on the film due to the ultrasound was investigated when the concentration of sugar was from 25% to 40%. As the result, there were rapid increases of discolored area on the film within 2~5 second after the ultrasound driving and the increasing rates decreased after the period. To compare the simulation results were also shown. However in the simulated result, the discolored areas linearly increased from start to 10 seconds. The reason of the differences between the experimental results and simulated ones is that the change of thermal conductivity and heat capacity of the medium were not considered in the simulation program.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.79-89
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• 2023

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to investigate various application methods of focused ultrasound and apply them to clinical use in Korean medicine. Methods : Search was performed using the search engines of electronic databases, including PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), ScienceON, Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System (OASIS), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, Japan Science Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic (J-STAGE) and Citation Information by NII (CiNii), from inception to July 2023 without language limitation. Inclusion criteria were clinical studies including randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and animal experimental studies related with focused ultrasound treatments for acupoints or meridian sinews. Results : Total 17 papers, 7 for RCT, 6 for in vivo animal studies, and other experimental studies, were finally selected. Indications used in studies were shoulder pain, back pain, chronic back pain, and degenerative knee arthritis. In experimental studies, studies on animal models of hypoxic ischemic brain damage and hyperlipidemia were also conducted. As for the acupoints, LR3, LI4, and ST36 were used in clinical studies and, in animal experimental studies, GV20, KI1, and ST36 were used. As for the dose, 4 studies below 3 W/cm² and 3 studies in the range of 0.625 to 5 W/cm² in clinical studies, and all studies did not exceed 5 W/cm². In animal experimental studies, 0.5 W/cm², 2 W/cm², 7.5 WW/cm², 15 W/cm², 10~20 W/cm² were used. In all three studies describing the penetration depth during irradiation, it was less than 1 cm. Conclusions : We suggest that focused ultrasound is an appropriate treatment tool for stimulating the acupoints to transfer heat energy. Future studies with rigorous and well-designed RCTs for various diseases will be required to ascertain the focused ultrasound stimulate acupoints or meridian sinews.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.158-165
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• 2017

The physical shape of an ultrasound transducer has not been considered in previous studies of the photoacoustic saturation effect, where a photoacoustic signal's magnitude linearly increases as an absorption coefficient increases and it is finally saturated. In this paper, the effect of a spherically focused ultrasound transducer on photoacoustic nonlinearity is investigated. The focused ultrasound transducer's spatial filtering effect on photoacoustic signals is analytically derived considering the combined concept of a virtual point detector and Green function approach. The ultrasound transducer's temporal response (i.e., transfer function) effect on photoacoustic signals is considered by integrating photoacoustic signal values within the absorption area covered by a spatial resolution of the ultrasound transducer. Results from the analytically derived expression show that the magnitude of photoacoustic signals measured by a spherical focused ultrasound transducer shows a maximum at a specific absorption coefficient, and decreases after that maximum point as an absorption coefficient is increased. The origin of this photoacoustic nonlinearity is physically understood by comparing the ultrasound transducer's transfer functions and photoacoustic resonance spectra. In addition, this physical interpretation implies that the photoacoustic nonlinearity is strongly dependent on the irradiance distribution inside an absorption medium.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.576-584
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• 2020

In order to obtain basic information for using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gel as a tissue mimicking phantom for temperature visualization, the temperature change characteristics due to the focused ultrasound were examined for different concentration of PVA. To obtain the basic acoustic characteristics, the speed of sound, the attenuation coefficient, and the density depending on the PVA concentration were measured, and the thermodynamic characteristics, such as thermal conductivity and heat capacity, were measured. The range of temperature rising in the vicinity of the focal point due to the focused ultrasound was observed using a thermochromic film that changes color at 30 degree or more, and the discolored area was obtained by image processing of the recorded image. As the concentration of PVA increases in the given range of 2 wt% ~ 16 wt%, the area that rises above 30 degree inside the gel increases linearly. It is confirmed that the discolored area increases as the power applied to the focused ultrasonic transducer increases. These results showed good agreement with the simulation results using the finite element method.