Customized modular multichannel electronics for ultrasound-mediated targeted drug delivery with a geodesic piezocrystal phased array

Ultrasound-mediated targeted drug delivery (UmTDD) has the potential to enhance the chemotherapeutic treatment of cancer by allowing increased drug doses preferentially at the location of the tumor. Although gaining increasing interest over the past few years, research into UmTDD system configurations has been hindered by the lack of experimental driving systems and ultrasound devices. In the work reported here, a piezocrystal composite geodesic phased array with 96 elements was connected to commercial programmable multi-channel electronics based on NI-PXIe / FlexRIO-FPGA hardware. The system was modified to provide appropriate ultrasound intensities through power and heat dissipation strategies. Auto-focusing was applied by phase aberration correction. Preliminary results using cross-correlation are presented to demonstrate its applicability. The pressure intensity at the focus of the array was increased four times while the intensity of side lobes were below -12 dB.