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To ensure its efficacy and safety, transcranial ultrasound therapy treatment planning requires accurate pressure field simulations and phase law corrections. Despite their long computation time and high memory usage, full numerical methods are often used since they are considered more accurate than semi-analytical methods. This work will present the so-called “pencil method“, a fast asymptotic model embedded in the CIVA HealthCare simulation platform. It allows computation in harmonic and impulse mode and the consideration of complex configurations, including solid obstacles, considering, at each interface, refractions and reflections with or without mode conversion of the acoustic field. This model was successfully compared to a recent collaborative work by Aubry et al. that presented a set of numerical benchmarks for transcranial propagation, to allow comparisons between various modeling tools. It was used to investigate the influence of parametric variation of skull material properties on the quality of acoustic focusing through the human skull. Its ability to predict the thermal rise at the intracranial target was validated against experimental data obtained ex-vivo through human skulls. Finally, works in progress will be shared about its connection to the open-source Kranion software developed at the FUS Foundation to facilitate comparison between clinical and simulated data.
Chatillon et al. (Fri,) studied this question.