Sonothrombolysis: delving into the physical foundations of the clinical application

Abstract

Sonothrombolysis (ultrasound-mediated thrombolysis) is an emerging treatment for acute myocardial infarction based on inducing the cavitation of gas bubbles near culprit thrombi, i.e. causing the bubbles to oscillate in volume until they collapse violently and rupture, at which point their surroundings may experience significant mechanical damage. This damage has been shown to assist the degradation of thrombi, but it may also exert unintended effects on healthy tissues. This research project seeks to perform a multi-objective optimization of the specifications of an ideal sonothrombolysis system, such that (i) it is effective in degrading thrombi while; (ii) retaining an acceptable safety profile. This task is highly complicated since no satisfactory mathematical model exists for sonothrombolysis, therefore requiring a low-level modeling of elementary physical phenomena together with extensive numerical and physical experiments. (AU)