On a computational study for investigating acoustic streaming and heating during focused ultrasound ablation of liver tumor

The influences of blood vessels and focused location on temperature distribution during high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation of liver tumors are studied numerically. A three-dimensional acoustics-thermal-fluid coupling model is employed to compute the temperature field in the hepatic cancerous region. The model construction is based on the linear Westervelt and bioheat equations as well as the nonlinear Navier-Stokes equations for the liver parenchyma and blood vessels. The effect of acoustic streaming is also taken into account in the present HIFU simulation study. Different blood vessel diameters and focal point locations were investigated. We found from this three-dimensional numerical study that in large blood vessels both the convective cooling and acoustic streaming can considerably change the temperature field and the thermal lesion near blood vessels. If the blood vessel is located within the beam width, both acoustic streaming and blood flow cooling effects should be addressed. The temperature rise on the blood vessel wall generated by a 1.0 MHz focused ultrasound transducer with the focal intensity 327 W/cm2 was 54% lower when acoustic streaming effect was taken into account. Subject to the applied acoustic power the streaming velocity in a 3 mm blood vessel is 12 cm/s. Thirty percent of the necrosed volume can be reduced, when taking into account the acoustic streaming effect.