A study on acoustic characteristics of couplants in HIFU for extracorporeal non-invasive treatment of CTO

When substances made up of fat and cholesterol are deposited in internal of the arteries, the lumen of the blood vessels and blood flow are reduced by the materials of deposition. Those symptoms make the artery completely be occluded. The high-intensity focused ultrasound energy is able to necrotize the chronic total occlusion(CTO). The couplant is required to deliver the ultrasound energy in the body. There are the acoustic coupling mediums such as water, mineral oil, agar gel, etc. In this paper, the influences of the couplant in high-intensity focused ultrasound(HIFU) treatment were studied for the necrosis of the chronic total occlusion's cap using water and agar gel as a couplant.