Theoretical study in applications of doublet mechanics to detect tissue pathological changes in elastic properties using high frequency ultrasound

Drug-Loaded Microbubbles Combined with Ultrasound for Thrombolysis and Malignant Tumor Therapy

Cardiac-cerebral thrombosis and malignant tumor endanger the safety of human life seriously. Traditional chemotherapy drugs have side effects which restrict their applications. Drug-loaded microbubbles can be destroyed by ultrasound irradiation at the focus position and be used for thrombolysis and tumor therapy. Compared with traditional drug treatment, the drug-loaded microbubbles can be excited by ultrasound and release drugs to lesion sites, increasing the local drug concentration and the exposure dose to nonfocal regions, thus reducing the cytotoxicity and side effects of drugs. This article reviews the applications of drug-loaded microbubbles combined with ultrasound for thrombolysis and tumor therapy. We focus on highlighting the advantages of using this new technique for disease treatment and concluding with recommendations for future efforts on the applications of this technology.

Model and experimental analysis of oblique incident ultrasound in a tissue layer using doublet mechanics theory

The fundamental framework of doublet mechanics (DM) is used to analyze high-frequency ultrasound wave propagation in materials with discrete microstructure. Ultrasonic reflection coefficients were measured from a thin layer of tissue embedded between two glass substrates at oblique incidence. Theoretical calculations for the reflection coefficients of a multi-layered system at oblique angles are performed using both DM theory and the classical continuum mechanics theory (CCM). For example, at the frequency of 10 MHz at incident angle 8° in sample with 30 μm thickness, the discrepancy in the magnitude of the reflection coefficient between experimental results and theoretical prediction is 15.8% for DM but 79.0% for CCM; similar results at other frequencies and incident angle in the samples with 30 and 60 μm thickness have also been obtained, which demonstrates that the DM theory can better describe the wave propagation in tissue. The influence of the incident angles and tissue thickness are also discussed in this paper.