Biomedical Ultrasonic Application

Ultrasound also has therapeutic applications, which can be highly beneficial when used with dosage precautions^.

• According to RadiologyInfo . ultrasounds are useful in the detection of Pelvic abnormalities and can involve techniques known as abdominal (transabdominal) ultrasound, vaginal (transvaginal or endovaginal) ultrasound in women, and also rectal (transrectal) ultrasound in men.

• Treating benign and malignant tumors and other disorders, via a process known as Focused Ultrasound Surgery (FUS) or HIFU, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound. These procedures generally use lower frequencies than medical diagnostic ultrasound (from 250 kHz to 2000 kHz), but significantly higher time-averaged intensities. The treatment is often guided by MRI, as in Magnetic Resonance guided Focused Ultrasound.
• Therapeutic ultrasound, a technique that uses more powerful ultrasound sources to generate local heating in biological tissue, e.g. in occupational therapy, physical therapy and cancer treatment.
• Cleaning teeth in dental hygiene.
• Focused ultrasound sources may be used for cataract treatment by phacoemulsification.
• Additional physiological effects of low-intensity ultrasound have recently been discovered, e.g. the ability to stimulate bone-growth and its potential to disrupt the blood-brain barrier for drug delivery.
• Ultrasound is used in UAL (= ultrasound-assisted lipectomy), or liposuction.
• Doppler ultrasound is being tested for use in aiding tissue plasminogen activator treatment in stroke sufferers. This procedure is called Ultrasound-Enhanced Systemic Thrombolysis.
• Low intensity pulsed ultrasound is used for therapeutic tooth and bone regeneration.
• Ultrasound can also be used for elastography. This can be useful in medical diagnoses, as elasticity can discern healthy from unhealthy tissue for specific organs/growths. In some cases unhealthy tissue may have a lower system Q, meaning that the system acts more like a large heavy spring as compared to higher values of system Q (healthy tissue) that respond to higher forcing frequencies. Ultrasonic elastography is different from conventional ultrasound, as a transceiver (pair) and a transmitter are used instead of only a transceiver. One transducer (a single element {or array of elements} acts as both the transmitter and receiver to image the region of interest over time. The extra transmitter is a very low frequency transmitter, and perturbs the system so the unhealthy tissue oscillates at a low frequency and the healthy tissue does not. The transceiver, which operates at a high frequency (typically MHz) then measures the displacement of the unhealthy tissue (oscillating at a much lower frequency). The movement of the slowly oscillating tissue is used to determine the elasticity of the material, which can then be used to distinguish healthy from unhealthy tissue.
• Ultrasound has been shown to act synergistically with antibiotics in bacterial cell killing^.
• Ultrasound has been postulated to allow thicker eukaryotic cell tissue cultures by promoting nutrient penetration.Scientific Article
• Ultrasound in the low MHz range in the form of standing waves is an emerging tool for contactless separation, concentration and manipulation of microparticles and biological cells. The basis is the acoustic radiation force, a non-linear effect which causes particles to be attracted to either the nodes or anti-nodes of the standing wave depending on the acoustic contrast factor, which is a function of the sound velocities and densities of the particle and of the medium in which the particle is immersed.