Liver hemostasis using high-intensity focused ultrasound

✍ Scribed by Shahram Vaezy; Roy Martin; Udo Schmiedl; Michael Caps; Shari Taylor; Kirk Beach; Steve Carter; Peter Kaczkowski; George Keilman; Scott Helton; Wayne Chandler; Pierre Mourad; Matthew Rice; Ronald Roy; Lawrence Crum

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 981 KB
• Volume: 23
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0301-5629
• DOI: 10.1016/s0301-5629(97)00143-9

✦ Synopsis

Liver hemorrhage, the major cause of death in hepatic trauma, is notoriously difficult to control. We report on the use of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to arrest the bleeding from incisions made in rabbit livers. A HIFU transducer, with a spherically curved aperture of 6.34 cm' area, a focal length of 4 cm and a frequency of 3.3 MHz was used. In approximately 94% of the incisions, the hemorrhage was reduced to a slow oozing of blood in less than 2 min. The maximum temperature of liver tissue around the incision area, during HIFU application, was measured to be 86°C. The mechanism of hemostasis, confirmed by histological examination, appears to be coagulative necrosis of a volume of liver tissue around the incision. We believe that acoustic hemostasis, with the unique characteristic of "volume cauterization," offers a novel method for the management of liver hemorrhage and, thus, has major clinical implications. 0 1997 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.