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Pressure Distribution Around Spherical Distal Ball-Tip In Ultrasound Angioplasty, Graham Gavin, Garrett B. Mcguinness, Finbar Dolan, M.S. J. Hashmi

Conference Papers

INTRODUCTION Ultrasound Angioplasty has been shown to be effective in the removal and re-canalising of blockages in arteries (Siegel RJ, 1993). By delivering therapeutic ultrasound to the blockage, via a wire waveguide to a ball-tip, the lesion or thrombus is affected by pressure waves, micro streaming, cavitation and direct contact with the oscillating ball-tip. Most work to date has concentrated on a spherical ball-tip geometry at the distal end of the wire waveguide (Steffen, 1994 and Rosenschein, 1996). Tip displacements usually lie between 10 - 100m (peak-to peak) and ball tip diameters between 1 - 2mm (Atar, 1999 and Yock, …