Numerical study on high intensity focused ultrasound therapy using array transducer

The development of the HIFU therapy for the deeply placed cancer such as the liver cancer and brain cancer has been desired. One problem is the displacement of the focal point due to the reflection and refraction of ultrasound. In the present study, the HIFU therapy for the brain cancer through a skull with a bowl-shape array transducer is performed numerically. Our approach is to solve the mass and momentum equations for mixture with the equation of state of media. The nonlinearity is mainly taken into account through the equation of state of the media. The three-dimensional controllability of the focal point by the array transducer with a phase delay is examined. As the result of the ultrasound propagation through the skull with the phase delay, we obtain a clear focal point where the peak pressure is higher than that without the phase delay. Therefore, the array transducer with the appropriate phase delay enables to assign the focal point to the target adequately, even if the ultrasound propagates through the inhomogeneous medium as a human skull.