High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a medical procedure to locally heat and ablate malignant tumors. Characterization of the HIFU beam location during the ablation procedures is critical for both accurate prediction of induced hyperthermia and development of regulatory standards for clinical devices. An accurate beam location and the orientation of the transducer with respect to the tumors are essential for precise ablation. A small change in the radial location or tilt in the application of the HIFU can lead to ablation of healthy tissue and result in grave injury. In in vitro systems, difficulties arise in perfectly aligning the phantom with the transducer and small tilt angles cannot be completely avoided. Traditional methods of finding the focus location by ablating on the thermocouples (TCs) involve artifacts and can result in positioning errors.
In vitro experiments on tissue mimicking material (TMM) with embedded TCs can be used as a preclinical method...
