RESUMEN

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this work was to study microbubble-enhanced temperature elevation with high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) at different acoustic pressures and under image guidance. The microbubbles were administered with either local or vascular injections (that mimic systemic injections) in perfused and non-perfused ex vivo porcine liver under ultrasound image guidance. METHODS: Porcine liver was insonified for 30 s with a single-element HIFU transducer (0.9 MHz, 0.413 ms, 82% duty cycle, focal pressures of 0.6-3.5 MPa). Contrast microbubbles were injected either locally or through the vasculature. A needle thermocouple at the focus measured temperature elevation. Diagnostic ultrasound (Philips iU22, C5-1 probe) guided placement of the thermocouple and delivery of microbubbles and monitored the procedure in real time. RESULTS: At lower acoustic pressures (0.6 and 1.2 MPa) in non-perfused liver, inertial cavitation of the injected microbubbles led to greater temperatures at the focus compared with HIFU-only treatments. At higher pressures (2.4 and 3.5 MPa) native inertial cavitation in the tissue (without injecting microbubbles) resulted in temperature elevations similar to those after injecting microbubbles. The heated area was larger when using microbubbles at all pressures. In the presence of perfusion, only local injections provided a sufficiently high concentration of microbubbles necessary for significant temperature enhancement. CONCLUSION: Local injections of microbubbles provide a higher concentration of microbubbles in a smaller area, avoiding acoustic shadowing, and can lead to higher temperature elevation at lower pressures and increase the size of the heated area at all pressures.

Asunto(s)

Ultrasonido Enfocado de Alta Intensidad de Ablación , Hipertermia Inducida , Animales , Porcinos , Microburbujas , Medios de Contraste , Ultrasonografía , Hígado/diagnóstico por imagen , Hígado/cirugía , Hipertermia Inducida/métodos , Ultrasonido Enfocado de Alta Intensidad de Ablación/métodos

RESUMEN

In arid yet foggy regions, fog harvesting is emerging as a promising approach to combat water scarcity. The mesh netting used by current fog harvesters suffers from inefficient drainage, which severely constrains the water collection efficiency. Recently, it was demonstrated that fog harps can significantly enhance water harvesting as the vertical wire array does not obstruct the drainage pathway. However, fabrication limitations resulted in a very low shade coefficient of 18% for the initial fog harp prototype and the field testing was geographically confined to light fog conditions. Here, we use wire-electrical discharge machining (wire-EDM) to machine ultrafine comb arrays; winding the harp wire along a comb-embedded reinforced frame enabled a shade coefficient of 50%. To field test under heavy fog conditions, we placed the harvesters on a closed-circuit test road and inundated them with fog produced by an array of overlying fog towers. On average, the fog harps collected about three times more water than the mesh netting. During fog harvesting, the harp wires were observed to tangle together due to the surface tension of water. We developed a rational model to predict the extent of the tangling problem for any given fog harp design. By designing next-generation fog harps to be anti-tangling, we expect that even larger performance multipliers will be possible compared to the current mesh harvesters.