Focused ultrasound ablation using real time ultrasound image guidance

Focused ultrasound surgery (FUS) is showing significant potential as a non-invasive medical intervention without percutaneous access for ablation (cell destruction by heating) of tumours. MRI is frequently used to guide FUS surgery (MRgFUS). Although the MRI can acquire multiple slices per second, organ motion is not accounted for in the repositioning of the sonication using MRI. Ultrasound, with realtime imaging, and which is less costly and easier to use than MRI, may become an alternative. In this paper we present a real-time ultrasound image guidance method suitable for tracking the motion of organs and ablating tissue. To demonstrate the potential of ultrasound imaging for real-time guidance of FUS, a 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) robot has been used to control a FUS transducer and position the focus at a target that has been segmented from a real-time ultrasound video. A moving phantom is designed to test the feasibility of the tracking and the control method.