3D passive cavitation imaging with improved axial resolution – CAVIIAR

Therapeutic ultrasound offers great perspectives for minimally-invasive surgery, enhanced drug delivery or cancer immunotherapy. A number of emerging applications rely on ultrasound cavitation, which is the oscillation of ultrasound-induced microbubbles,. In any of these applications, a volumic monitoring of the treatment in real-time is a required step for potential clinical application. Cavitation activity, being directly actuated by high intensity ultrasound, cannot be characterized in real-time using B-mode imaging because of dazzling effects. For this purpose, passive imaging techniques have been developped, but they all suffer from poor axial resolution. Moreover, 3D passive imaging of cavitation has been barely tackled.
In that context, CAVIIAR aims at offering a versatile high-resolution method to monitor cavitation activity in a volume under treatment using a dual-array approach combined with advanced signal and image processing techniques.