| abstract |
System and methods for locating a vascular opening and thereafter therapeutically sealing the wound with high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) are disclosed. The improved system utilizes three or more reference transducers mounted on the HIFU applicator and another transducer mounted on a distal end of a probe. The probe is used with the imaging array of the HIFU applicator. The operator places the distal end of the probe at the vessel opening using the imaging array. The position of the applicator may need to be adjusted on the patient's body, depending upon the feedback of the imaging array data. The transducers transmit and receive acoustic energy and generate signals indicative of their location. Time-of-flight (TOF) calculations are performed to determine the distances between the probe transducer and the reference transducers. A three-dimensional position of the end of the probe is calculated using a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) algorithm. The coordinates are then converted to a local coordinate system using a Procrustean similarity transform (PSD), the output of which is used to generate the focal point of the HIFU therapeutic array. |