A parametric study of bubble dynamics and lesion formation in liver tissue phantom during pressure-modulated shockwave histotripsy.

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101563288 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 2045-2322 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 20452322 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Sci Rep Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: London : Nature Publishing Group, copyright 2011-

Liver*/pathology ; Liver*/surgery ; Phantoms, Imaging* ; High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Ablation*/methods; Pressure ; Humans ; Animals

Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Pressure-modulated shockwave histotripsy (PSH) is a new type of histotripsy that has recently been proposed for precise mechanical tissue fractionation without inducing the shock scattering effect. Though a previous initial proof-of-concept study clearly demonstrated the feasibility of PSH through introducing the pressure modulation time point (t m ) to minimise the shock scattering effect, this study was limited to the examination of the effect of a single PSH pulse at a constant t m on bubble dynamics. Here, we investigated the effects of varying PSH exposure conditions, particularly changes of t m and the number of pulses, on bubble dynamics and lesion formation in liver tissue phantoms. Our experimental results reveal that a gradual increase in t m beyond the time-to-boil can start to initiate shock scattering effect, thereby forming a larger PSH lesion with the transformation of the lesion shape of an ellipsoid to an elongated tadpole. Furthermore, the PSH lesion size gradually increased with PSH pulses. Under the 2 MHz PSH exposure, the smallest oval-shaped lesion area was measured to be 0.18 mm ² with t m of 4 ms and a single PSH pulse, whereas the largest tadpole-shaped lesion area of 5.39 mm ² was produced with t m of 9 ms and 50 PSH pulses. Taken together, these suggest that PSH could be a promising approach for effectively controlling bubble dynamics and lesion formation.
(© 2025. The Author(s).)

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K2327201 Korea University; RS-2022-00141091 Korea Medical Device Development Fund; RS-2024-00400392 Korea Basic Science Institute; IITP-2025-RS-2024-00438239 IITP (Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation) - ITRC (Information Technology Research Center); RS-2025-00556536 National Research Foundation of Korea; 20024280 Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

Keywords: Boiling histotripsy; Bubble dynamics; HIFU; Pressure-modulated shockwave histotripsy

Date Created: 20250721 Date Completed: 20250721 Latest Revision: 20250724

20250724

PMC12280012

10.1038/s41598-025-11512-x

40691226