Performance Characteristics of a Therapeutic Ultrasound Wire Waveguide Apparatus

Therapeutic ultrasound angioplasty has been investigated, clinically, by a number of researchers and represents a potentially promising therapy, for the treatment of atherosclerotic lesions. To date, there has been no detailed analysis of the mechanical design and the effect of parameters, such as length and damping, for example, on wire waveguide performance characteristics. In this work, an apparatus capable of delivering therapeutic ultrasound down small diameter nickel-titanium (NiTi) wire waveguides is described. The output peak-to-peak (p-p) displacements at the distal tip of a 1.0 mm diameter wire waveguide were measured experimentally, by means of an optical microscope and image analysis software. The apparatus was tested for a range of wire waveguide lengths from 118 mm to 303 mm. Wire waveguid