High-intensity focused ultrasound ablation enhancement in vivo via phase-shift nanodroplets compared to microbubbles

Abstract

Results indicate that the nanodroplet formulation studied here can substantially increase thermal delivery at the acoustic focus while avoiding prefocal heating. In contrast, microbubbles resulted in greater prefocal heating and less heating at the target. Furthermore, nanodroplets are sufficiently stable to enhance HIFU ablation in vivo for at least 1.5 h after injection. The use of a dual-perfluorocarbon nanodroplet formulation as described herein could substantially reduce HIFU procedure times without increasing the risk of skin burns.