Microcavitation dynamics in viscoelastic tissue during histotripsy process

Abstract

Monitoring bubble cavitations and bubble dynamics are essential in enhancing non-invasive ultrasonic ablation methods like histotripsy that mechanically fractionates tissue into acellular debris using microcavitation. Histotripsy can totally fractionate tissue into a liquid-appearing homogenate with no cellular features with enough pulses. In this paper, we present the analysis of the dynamics of cavitation bubbles in a viscoelastic medium subjected to a histotripsy pulse using different fidelities in depicting compressibility and viscoelasticity effects. The mathematical formulation is described based on the Keller-Miksis equation in two models for cavitation bubbles in viscoelastic tissue through histotripsy process; the first model is in neo-Hookean, and the second is in quadratic law Kelvin-Voigt model. The governing model is solved analytically based on the modified Plesset-Zwick method. Analysis of the results reveals that the parameters of Young modulus, viscosity effects and stiffening parameter reduce the growth of cavitation microbubbles through the histotripsy process. The cavitation bubble growth increases when the gel concentration decreases during the histotripsy process.

Keywords: Keller–Miksis equation; bubble dynamics; histotripsy; neo-Hookean model; quadratic law Kelvin–Voigt; ultrasonic ablation; viscoelastic cavitation.