Sonothrombolysis - Dissolving Thrombi by Interaction of the Drug and Ultrasound

Under the influence of pathological changes, the blood coagulates inside the blood vessel, creating a thrombus. The thrombus dissolution process is called thrombolysis. The aim of the study is to evaluate the thrombolysis process by the interaction of the thrombolitic drug and ultrasound. The clot dissolution process was analyzed in a specially designed, transparent for ultrasound parallel plate flow chamber. Inside, a freshly coagulated human blood sample was exposed to ultrasound. A liquid containing the tissue plasminogen activator drug in a concentration of 10 μg/ml passed around the sample. The liquid flow was forced by a peristaltic pump. The source of ultrasound was a 1 MHz flat ultrasonic transducer with a 25 mm diameter. The transducer radiated a 1000 periods burst, repeated every 2500 periods and space averaged time averaged intensities of 0.2-1.6 W /cm
²
, The efficacy of thrombus dissolution was observed by means of a designed parallel plate flow chamber and the time of thrombus complete dissolution was measured. The best result for the 1 MHz frequency and space averaged time averaged intensity of 1.6 W/cm
²
was recorded, where the thrombus was dissolved within 5.5 minutes.