High intensity focused ultrasound transducer optimization

1. A method of magnetic resonance (MR) guided high intensity focused ultrasonic (HIFU) ablation, including:

evaluating transducer data including transducer element position, geometry, and acoustic parameter information;

evaluating 3D MR data including ROI data describing a size, shape, and position of a region of interest (ROI) to be ablated, and obstruction data describing a size, shape, and position of an obstruction between one or more of a plurality of HIFU transducer elements and the ROI;

maximizing HIFU waveform delivery to the ROI while minimizing HIFU waveform delivery to the obstruction and surrounding tissue;

generating a patient-specific acoustic path model;

presenting the acoustic path model to a user via a user interface;

receiving user input regarding adjustments to at least one of (i) a position of one or more of the plurality of HIFU transducer elements and (ii) a transmission phase and amplitude of one or more of the plurality of HIFU transducer elements; and

simulating a HIFU sonication of a region of interest (ROI) using the acoustic path model and the user input, wherein simulating the HIFU sonication includes:

segmenting a volume of interest into subvolumes;

extracting and discretizing subvolume boundaries;

positioning a HIFU transducer in a simulation domain;

specifying phases and amplitudes for a plurality of transducer elements in the HIFU transducer;

specifying one or more regions of interest (ROI) in the volume of interest;

selecting a transducer element from the plurality of transducer elements;

launching a discrete computational phonon;

analyzing propagation characteristics of the launched phonon;

storing the launched phonon and path characteristic data in a phonon buffer that stores path characteristic data for a plurality of phonons;

retrieving a new phonon from the phonon buffer;

simulating phonon propagation for the new phonon;

determining whether a ray defining the phonon path intersects a subvolume boundary;

dividing the ray into a transmitted portion and a reflected portion if the ray intersects a subvolume boundary;

determining amplitude and phase information for each of the transmitted and reflected portions of the ray; and

storing the amplitude and phase information for each of the transmitted and reflected portions of the ray in the phonon buffer; and

controlling an HIFU transducer configured to output ultrasonic energy for an ablation procedure based on the stored information.

2. A method of magnetic resonance (MR) guided high intensity focused ultrasonic (HIFU) ablation, including:

evaluating transducer data including transducer element position, geometry, and acoustic parameter information;

evaluating 3D MR data including ROI data describing a size, shape, and position of a region of interest (ROI) to be ablated, and obstruction data describing a size, shape, and position of an obstruction between one or more of a plurality of HIFU transducer elements and the ROI;

maximizing HIFU waveform delivery to the ROI while minimizing HIFU waveform delivery to the obstruction and surrounding tissue;

generating a patient-specific acoustic path model;

presenting the acoustic path model to a user via a user interface;

receiving user input regarding adjustments to at least one of (i) a position of one or more of the plurality of HIFU transducer elements and (ii) a transmission phase and amplitude of one or more of the plurality of HIFU transducer elements; and

simulating a HIFU sonication of a region of interest (ROI) using the acoustic path model and the user input, wherein simulating the HIFU sonication includes:

segmenting a volume of interest into subvolumes;

extracting and discretizing subvolume boundaries;

positioning a HIFU transducer in a simulation domain;

specifying phases and amplitudes for a plurality of transducer elements in the HIFU transducer;

specifying one or more regions of interest (ROI) in the volume of interest;

distributing transducer elements into groups;

generating an approximate geometric model for each group of transducer elements;

performing a Fourier transform on a source distribution for each element in a given group;

computing an excited field for each element in the given group;

propagating the excited field to a first boundary plane;

summing the field contributions of each element in the group;

propagating the excited field through a plurality of stacked layers of material;

calculating a transmission coefficient at each boundary for each of a plurality components of the excited field based on a wave vector of each component and a material parameters on each side of the boundary;

multiplying the excited field by the transmission coefficient;

propagating the excited field to a next layer of material;

computing an acoustic field in the ROI; and

proceeding to a next group of transducer elements until all groups have been simulated; and

controlling an HIFU transducer configured to output ultrasonic energy for an ablation procedure based on results of said simulating a HIFU sonication of a region of interest (ROI) using the acoustic path model and the user input.