RESEARCH ARTICLE Modeling and Predicting Tissue Movement and Deformation for High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy

Purpose In ultrasound-guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) therapy, the target tissue (such as a tumor) often moves and/or deforms in response to an external force. This prob-lem creates difficulties in treating patients and can lead to the destruction of normal tissue. In order to solve this problem, we present a novel method to model and predict the move-ment and deformation of the target tissue during ultrasound-guided HIFU therapy. Methods Our method computationally predicts the position of the target tissue under external force. This prediction allows appropriate adjustments in the focal region during the application of HIFU so that the treatment head is kept aligned with the diseased tissue through the course of therapy. To accomplish this goal, we utilize the cow tissue as the experimental target tis-sue to collect spatial sequences of ultrasound images using the HIFU equipment. A Geode-sic Localized Chan-Vese (GLCV) model is developed to segment the target tissue images. A 3D target tissue model is built based on the segmented results. A versatile particle frame