Inertial cavitation and associated acoustic emission produced during electrohydraulic shock wave lithotripsy.

The inertial cavitation and associated acoustic emission generated during electrohydraulic shock wave lithotripsy were studied using high-speed photography and acoustic pressure measurements. The dynamics of cavitation bubble clusters, induced in vitro by an experimental laboratory lithotripter, were recorded using a high-speed rotating drum camera at 20,000 frames/s. The acoustic emission, generated by the rapid initial expansion and subsequent violent collapse of the cavitation bubbles, was measured simultaneously using a 1-MHz focused hydrophone, The expansion duration of the cavitation bubble cluster was found to correlate closely with the time delay between the first two groups of pressure spikes in the acoustic emission signal. This correlation provides an essential physical basis to assess the inertial cavitation produced by a clinical Dornier HM-3 shock wave lithotripter, both in water and in renal parenchyma of a swine model. In the clinical output voltage range (16-24 kV), the expansion duration of the primary cavitation bubble cluster generated by the HM-3 lithotripter in water increases from 158 to 254 microseconds, whereas the corresponding values in renal parenchyma are much smaller and remain almost unchanged (from 71 to 72 microseconds). In contrast, subsequent oscillation of the bubble following its primary collapse is significantly prolonged (from 158-235 microseconds in water to 1364-1373 microseconds in renal parenchyma). These distinctive differences between lithotripsy-induced inertial cavitation in vitro and that in vivo are presumably due to the constraining effect of renal tissue on bubble expansion.