Development of a treatment simulation platform—Application to probe optimization and tissues characterization

In order to ease the development and optimization of new transducers and therapeutic protocols, a unified tool to easily simulate 3D pressure fields created by HIFU in human tissues has been developed jointly by INSERM and CEA-LIST. This includes three propagation algorithms: 1/ a GPU implementation of Rayleigh integral for fast linear propagation in human soft tissues, 2/ a dynamic ray tracing algorithm for the simulation of propagation in heterogeneous or inhomogeneous media (i.e., bones, skull, heated tissues, etc.), 3/ a Westervelt solver for non-linear propagation. These algorithms have been validated and implemented in a unified graphical user interface and can be easily interchanged to compare the results or to target a specific research topic. A finite volume difference solver for Bio Heat Transfer Equation (BHTE) has also been implemented. It can be used with all the HIFU propagation algorithms. It is used to simulate thermal effects of HIFUs and thermal dose in tissues and phantoms. Parametric s...