Patent ID: 8287471
Filing Date: 2012-10-16
Classification: A61B,A61N

Abstract:
1. A method of treating a disorder of a subject by thermal ablation, said method comprising: obtaining medical images that include at least one image of the subject's chest and ribs to reconstruct a three-dimensional chest-rib distribution; receiving information representative of results of repeated and real-time calculation of a relationship between the three-dimensional chest-rib distribution and an acoustic emission direction; and applying ultrasound waves on a target point beyond the subject's ribs by selectively activating one or more elements of an ultrasound phased array to avoid ultrasonic energy absorption or reflection by an intervening rib based on said repeated and real-time calculation of a relationship between the three-dimensional chest-rib distribution and an acoustic emission direction while there exists relative motion between the ultrasound phased array and the chest-rib distribution; wherein obtaining medical images includes detecting at least one of a rib boundary and an ultrasound phased array boundary based on an edge detection algorithm, and an auto-segmentation algorithm, wherein said acoustic emission direction is calculated by a ray-tracing algorithm to determine an activation status for each element of said ultrasound phased array, and wherein selectively activating includes marking one or more elements of said ultrasound phased array according to their positions with respect to said three-dimensional chest-rib distribution.