Study on the ultrasonic cavitation damage to early atherosclerotic plaque

Ultrasonic cavitation can damage surrounding material and be used for destruction of the target tissue. In this paper, we investigated the interaction between atherosclerotic plaque (AP) and cavitation bubbles to determine whether the mechanical effect of cavitation damage could be potentially useful in therapy for treating atherosclerotic plaques. A two-bubble–fluid–solid model was established to study the dynamic behavior of bubbles near the AP and the AP damage by ultrasound-induced cavitation. A low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) transducer was used for testing cavitation-based AP damage. We found that the nonlinear oscillation of bubbles causes the relative positions of the bubbles to shift, either toward or away from one another, these phenomena lead to changes in the bond failure rate between the fiber bundles, and the value of BRF exhibits an upward trend, this is the reason why the fibers suffered from reversible stretching and compressing. However, the AP damage is irreversible and diminishes as the number of cycles in the ultrasonic burst. It appears that the bigger the radii, regardless of whether the bubble (3 − i)’s and bubble i's radii are equal, the greater the AP damage. Ultrasonic cavitation therapy may not be appropriate for advanced AP patients, and the calcified tissue has a greater impact on the stability of the plaque. The damage area should be strictly selected. Additionally, the tissue damage phenomenon was found in experimental results. This work shows that the severity of AP damage is correlated with acoustic parameters and the surrounding environment from both simulation and experimental perspectives. The results show that ultrasonic cavitation may provide a new choice for the treatment of AP.