MR-Guided Ultrasonic Brain Therapy: High Frequency Approach

A novel MR-guided brain therapy device operating at 1 MHz has been designed and constructed. The system has been installed and tested in a clinical 1.5 T Philips Achieva MRI. Three dimensional time domain finite differences simulations were used to compute the propagation of the wave field through three human skulls. The simulated phase distortions were used as inputs for transcranial correction and the corresponding pressure fields were scanned in the focal plane. At half of the maximum power (10 W/cm² on the surface of the transducers), necroses were induced 2 cm deep in turkey breasts placed behind a human skull. In vitro experiments on human skulls show that simulations restore more than 85% of the pressure level through the skull bone when compared to a control correction performed with an implanted hydrophone. Finally, high power experiments are performed though the skull bone and a MR-Thermometry sequence is used to map the temperature rise in a brain phantom every 3 s in two orthogonal planes (focal plane and along the axis of the probe).