Patent ID: 11872414
Assignee: ALPHEUS MEDICAL, INC.
Field: Pharmaceuticals (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC A  B | IPC A  B

Claim 0:
1. A method of producing ultrasound waves for sonodynamic therapy to treat tumor cells harboring a sonosensitizer, comprising:
coupling a sonodynamic therapy device to a skin surface over a treatment region with the tumor cells of a patient, the sonodynamic therapy device comprising: a controller, a patient interface, and a cooling system,
wherein the patient interface comprises an array of piezoelectric ultrasound transducer elements and at least one of a cap, a rigid shell and a flexible shell,
wherein the array of piezoelectric ultrasound transducer elements is coupled to the controller,
wherein the controller detects at least one piezoelectric transducer element in the array of piezoelectric transducer elements and selects a treatment algorithm for the at least one piezoelectric transducer element, wherein an acoustic intensity within the treatment region is in a range of 0.1 W/cm2 to 50 W/cm2 to activate the sonosensitizer,
wherein the piezoelectric ultrasound transducer elements are arranged in a grid,
wherein each of the piezoelectric ultrasound transducer elements comprises an emitting surface configured to emit ultrasound waves,
wherein the ultrasound waves are planar or defocused,

driving the array of piezoelectric ultrasound transducer elements with a signal to activate the sonosensitizer in the tumor cells of the patient,
wherein the sonosensitizer comprises a porphyrin compound,
wherein the signal comprises one or more frequencies in a range of 20 kHz to 2 MHz,
wherein the signal is configured to minimize a spatial variation of the acoustic intensity in the treatment region with the tumor cells of the patient with a modulated wave parameter to emit the ultrasound waves with the acoustic intensity to damage the tumor cells in the treatment region of the patient when activating the sonosensitizer,
wherein the signal is modulated by a duty cycle modulated drive signal configured to produce duty cycle modulated acoustic waves, wherein the duty cycle modulated drive signal is configured to generate a temporal average acoustic intensity when activating the sonosensitizer,
wherein the sonodynamic therapy device is configured to acoustically couple the array of piezoelectric ultrasound transducer elements to the skin surface,
wherein the driving the array of piezoelectric transducer elements comprises one or more randomized phases in the signal to promote coverage of the treatment region by the ultrasound waves, and

circulating a fluid in the cooling system, wherein the cooling system is configured to absorb heat through the skin surface over the treatment region.