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Optical coherence tomography monitoring of cardiac ablation by high-intensity focused ultrasound

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a promising method for ablation therapy in the heart. Little is understood about early lesion development with HIFU because the lesions cannot be imaged reliably with sufficient resolution, and no other real time monitoring techniques are available to date. We investigated Optical coherence tomography (OCT) for monitoring early lesion formation. We created a series of lesions in fresh canine cardiac tissue using 5W (frequency=4.23Mhz, F#=1.2) of acoustic power with 10sec., 7sec., and 5sec. exposures. The lesions were then imaged using an OCT imaging system with an axial resolution of 12μm and a lateral resolution of 15μm. The maximum width of the lesions were measured using custom software. In separate experiments, lesion formation was investigated under varying acoustic power levels ranging from 5W to 20W at 0.1sec. and 0.2 sec. exposures. The average maximum widths of the lesions were 1.06mm for 10sec. lesions, .65mm for 7sec. lesions, and .59mm for 5sec. lesions. We observed both subsurface lesions and superficial blister-like formations, which may be a precursor of cavitation inception or tissue vaporization. The subsurface lesion forms over time as expected from thermal energy deposition. The surface blister forms prior to the subsurface lesion at high power, and after subsurface lesion formation at lower powers. OCT provides a method for monitoring HIFU lesion formation at high resolution, and can potentially be used to optimize HIFU dose for clinical applications.