Design and Fabrication of a Wide-Aperture HIFU Annular Array Transducer for the Treatment of Deep-Seated Tumors.

In HIFU treatment applications, the annular array transducer is a feasible solution for the clinical/engineering requirements which are as follows: ablation of tumors deep inside body, electronic dynamic focusing in the depth direction, simple configuration/operation, and lower cost due to fewer elements/channels of amplifier. A 12 cm-diameter, 12 cm-radius-of-curvature annular array transducer has been developed in this study. The pseudo-inverse method was adopted to calculate the desired phase of each element for focusing, and the Rayleigh-Summerfield integral was used to obtain the ultrasonic pressure field. In the simulation, the operating frequency was 0.9 MHz, and the acoustic medium was water. A piece of 1-3 piezocomposite was fabricated using the dice and fill technique for the pilot test. The dimension of the sample was 4 × 2 cm, and it was thermally shaped using a spherical mold of 12 cm in radius. The results of the simulation showed that the focus could not be moved electronically in the depth direction until the number of elements (annuli) was equal to or higher than 5, and the dynamic focusing range increased as the number of elements increased. The intensity at the acoustic window or skin was also estimated from the simulated results and was only 0.03% of the intensity at focus. The curved composite sample was tested using an impedance analyser and a radiation force balance. The resonant frequency and electro-acoustic efficiency were measured to be 0.914 MHz and 65%, respectively. The results of the simulation can provide a design guideline for the development of different-size HIFU annular array transducers. A prototype of the HIFU annular array transducer designed is being fabricated in-house. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]