HIFU principle

HIFU (High Intensity Focused Ultrasound)

also called therapeutic ultrasound is used in some surgical indications to obtain a biological effect on the target tissues.
 
It is often used to treat some cancers (liver metastases, prostate cancer, brain tumours, etc.)

Production of Therapeutic Ultrasound

HIFU is generated by piezoelectric transducers. These ceramic components convert electrical energy into mechanical vibration.  The vibration then generates acoustic waves.  At high frequency these waves cannot be heard and belong to the group called ultrasounds.
 
The transducers developed by EyeTechCare are amongst the smallest ever made for therapeutic applications. Each transducer has a surface area of less than 40mm2  This advanced miniaturisation has enabled EyeTechCare to produce a very high precision device compatible with the anatomy of the eye.
 
EyeTechCare  is advancing in the field of eye diseases.  The first application of its technology led to the development of the EYEOP1 instrument providing non-invasive treatments of refractory glaucoma.

Properties of HIFU - application in the treatment of glaucoma

High Intensity Focussed Ultrasound brings together properties which probably make it the most useful energy source for surgical applications.

• HIFU pass through biological tissues easily and can therefore target deep tissues without the need for a surgical incision.  Because of this, HIFU enables non-invasive treatments to be performed.
• HIFU enables energy to enter the human body without an incision. The powerful ultrasound waves are focussed and all of the energy is therefore concentrated at a single point.  With its EYEOP1 instrument,  EyeTechCare has succeeded in concentrating the energy at a single point with a single sub-millimetre size of point and to position this point very accurately in the ciliary body (see treatment).
• The energy delivered at the focal point coagulates the target tissue by hyperthermia (controlled increase in temperature),although the hyperthermia is localised into a sub-millimetre point affecting only the target tissue (the ciliary body). All of the tissues which the beams pass through before the focal point and all of those after or around the focal point are entirely preserved and remain intact
• By developing transducers which have a novel geometry, EyeTechCare has succeeded in generating ultrasound beams, the focal point of which is a segment of a line allowing the ciliary body to be coagulated not as points which other techniques use but over several adjacent segments entirely consistent with the ring shape of the ciliary body.  This entirely novel strategy allows more effective, accurate, faster and reproducible treatment.

Discover the EYEOP1 system intended for HIFU treatment of refractory glaucoma