Acoustic streaming in a soft tissue microenvironment

Abstract

We demonstrated that sound can push fluid through a tissue-mimicking material. Although acousticstreaming in tissue has been proposed as a mechanism for biomedical ultrasound applications, such as neuromodu-lation and enhanced drug penetration, streaming in tissue or acoustic phantoms has not been directly observed. Wedeveloped a material that mimics the porous structure of tissue and used a dye and a video camera to track fluidmovement. When applied above an acoustic intensity threshold, a continuous focused ultrasound beam (spatialpeak time average intensity: 238 W/cm2, centre frequency: 5 MHz) was found to push the dye axially, that is, in thedirection of wave propagation and in the radial direction. Dye clearance increased with ultrasound intensity andwas modelled using an adapted version of Eckart’s acoustic streaming velocity equation. No microstructuralchanges were observed in the sonicated region when assessed using scanning electron microscopy. Our study indi-cates that acoustic streaming can occur in soft porous materials and provides a mechanistic basis for future use ofstreaming for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.