Multi-modal transducer-waveguide construct coupled to a medical needle

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openAccess

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2023-11-22

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

9
3388-3396

Series

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Volume 154

Abstract

Annually, more than 16 × 109 medical needles are consumed worldwide. However, the functions of the medical needle are still limited mainly to cutting and delivering material to or from a target site. Ultrasound combined with a hypodermic needle could add value to many medical applications, for example, by reducing the penetration force needed during the intervention, adding precision by limiting the needle deflection upon insertion into soft tissues, and even improving tissue collection in fine-needle biopsy applications. In this study, we develop a waveguide construct able to operate a longitudinal-flexural conversion of a wave when transmitted from a Langevin transducer to a conventional medical needle, while maintaining high electric-to-acoustic power efficiency. The optimization of the waveguide structure was realized in silico using the finite element method followed by prototyping the construct and characterizing it experimentally. The experiments conducted at low electrical power consumption (under 5 W) show a 30 kHz flexural needle tip displacement up to 200 μm and 73% electric-to-acoustic power efficiency. This, associated with a small sized transducer, could facilitate the design of ultrasonic medical needles, enabling portability, batterization, and improved electrical safety, for applications such as biopsy, drug and gene delivery, and minimally invasive interventions.

Description

Keywords

Ultrasound, Acoustics, Flexural waves, Physical quantities, Wave mechanics, Ergonomics, Finite-element analysis, Medical diagnosis, Gene delivery, Biomedical equipment

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Citation

Le Bourlout, Y, Ehnholm, G & Nieminen, H 2023, ' Multi-modal transducer-waveguide construct coupled to a medical needle ', The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 154, pp. 3388-3396 . https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0022326