An Ultrasound-Guided Hemispherical Phased Array for Microbubble-Mediated Ultrasound Therapy.

Goal: To develop a low-cost magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-free transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS) system for microbubble-mediated therapy.

Methods: A 128-element 11 MHz array for skull localization was integrated within a 256-module multi-frequency (306/612/1224 kHz) dual-mode phased array. The system's transcranial transmit and receive performance was evaluated with ex-vivo human skullcaps using phase aberration corrections calculated from computed tomography (CT)-based simulations via ultrasound-based (USCT) and landmark-based (LMCT) registrations, and a gold-standard fixed source emitter (FSE)-based method.

Implementation of a Skull-Conformal Phased Array for Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Therapy.

Objective: To implement a skull-conformal phased array for ultrasound-guided transcranial focused ultrasound therapy with improved patient comfort.

Methods: Using patient-specific computed tomography and MRI neuroimaging data, tightly-conforming helmet scaffolds were designed computationally. The helmet scaffolds were designed to hold reusable transducer modules at near-normal incidence in an optimal configuration for the treatment location(s) of interest.