Patent ID: 8725232

Claim:
A therapeutic apparatus comprising: a high intensity focused ultrasound system for sonicating a sonication volume of a subject, the high intensity focused ultrasound system including an ultrasonic transducer located external to the subject within a fluid-filled chamber; a magnetic resonance imaging system for acquiring magnetic resonance thermometry data from nuclei of the subject located within an imaging volume, wherein the sonication volume is within the imaging volume; and a controller for controlling the therapeutic apparatus, wherein the controller is configured for: receiving a treatment plan specifying a target volume within the imaging volume, wherein the treatment plan comprises instructions for controlling the operation of the high intensity focused ultrasound system; sonicating the target volume using the high intensity focused ultrasound system by executing the treatment plan; repeatedly acquiring magnetic resonance thermometry data using the magnetic resonance imaging system during execution of the treatment plan; modifying the treatment plan during execution of the treatment plan using the magnetic resonance thermometry data; acquiring magnetic resonance image data using the magnetic resonance imaging system, the magnetic resonance image data conveying anatomical information; repeatedly updating the magnetic resonance image data during execution of the treatment plan; and modifying the treatment plan using the repeatedly updated magnetic resonance image data by at least: modeling the transmission of ultrasound from a high intensity focused ultrasound transducer of the high intensity focused ultrasound system to the target volume using the repeatedly updated magnetic resonance image data, and using one or more of a stochastic simulation, a fast approximation simulation and an acoustic field estimation.