Ultrasound-assisted laser technique vaporizes artery plaque
DENVER: Atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque, can lead to heart disease, artery disease, and chronic kidney disease and is traditionally treated by inserting and inflating a balloon to expand the artery. Other treatments based on lasers can remove blockages rather than simply compressing them but are used infrequently, because they have a high risk of complication and low efficacy.
Rohit Singh, of the University of Kansas, and other researchers developed a method that combines a low-power laser with ultrasound to remove arterial plaque safely and efficiently. Singh will describe preliminary results in his presentation, "A novel ultrasound-assisted laser technique to remove atherosclerotic plaques," at the 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. The session will take place May 24 at 5:05 p.m. Eastern U.S. at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel.
High-power laser treatments direct thermal energy to vaporize water in the artery and create a vapor bubble, which expands and collapses to break the plaque. Similarly, the technology, pioneered by Xinmai Yang, doctoral advisor for the team, uses a low-power nanosecond pulsed laser to produce microbubbles. The addition of irradiation from ultrasound causes the microbubbles to expand, collapse, and disrupt the plaque.
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