SINTEF Digital – Department of Health Research

Senior Research Scientist Rune Hansen, PhD and Research Manager Sigrid Berg, PhD have extensive competence with the use of therapeutic ultrasound in combination with microbubbles.

Contrast agents based on microbubbles with diameter in the range 1-5 μm have been available and used diagnostically with ultrasound for several decades. During the last two decades, the use of therapeutic ultrasound in combination with microbubbles to mediate drug delivery has emerged as a new research field. It has been shown in several preclinical studies as well as in a few clinical studies that the combination of therapeutic ultrasound and intravenously injected microbubbles can be used to obtain a localized and transient opening of the blood-brain barrier. A microbubble exposed to ultrasound can have large volume oscillations which results in tissue displacements that can be 2 orders of magnitude larger than what is obtained in tissues without microbubbles. Microbubbles therefore have a unique potential in terms of their capability to focus and transfer mechanical energy from the ultrasound field to nearby tissues and cells.

SINTEF Digital has experience both with numerical modelling of microbubbles, with preclinical experiments in tissue-mimicking phantoms and in animals as well as clinical pilot studies in patients. The team has access to a preclinical setup for performing MR guided ultrasound treatment in rodents.