A Polyvinyl Alcohol-Based Thermochromic Material for Ultrasound Therapy Phantoms

Characterization of Acoustic, Cavitation, and Thermal Properties of Poly(vinyl alcohol) Hydrogels for Use as Therapeutic Ultrasound Tissue Mimics

“…In comparison to other TMMs (e.g., agar and gelatine gels that are relatively fragile), PVA forms more robust, high-melting-point gels (similar to polyacrylamide, but without the use of neurotoxic ingredients). Although PVA gel has to be heated during manufacture (like agar and gelatine), it does not form a solid gel on cooling, thus allowing other ingredients to be added prior to gelation, for example, thermochromic dyes Ambrogio et al (2020). This also offers greater future potential for use in histotripsy applications.…”

“…From this range of potential TMM candidate materials, PVA hydrogels have recently been suggested as being suitable for focused ultrasound (FUS) applications, which exploit thermal effects (Crivoi et al 2007;ter Haar and Coussios 2007;Bru ¨ningk et al, 2019), and have incorporated thermochromic dye to monitor heating patterns (Ambrogio et al 2020). PVA is an cheap, biocompatible synthetic polymer that forms hydrogels from aqueous solutions.…”

Green Thermochromic Materials: A Brief Review

“…Researchers have commonly integrated leuco dyes into biopolymer and nontoxic polymeric materials as alternative inorganic complexes. [ 13,38,68 ] In some instances, researchers have worked to develop thermochromic systems that mimic leuco dye systems. [ 30,58 ] For example, Zhu et al.…”

“…developed a low‐cost, polymeric material to mimic tissue with acoustic and thermal properties. [ 13 ] Using PVA and Kromagen Magenta MB60‐NH, a commercially available thermochromic ink, the material was designed for applications in ultrasound phantom therapy. [ 13 ] Upon analysis, researchers found that thermochromic characteristic was exhibited in the specific regions when the material was exposed to high‐intensity focused ultrasound that was used to sonicate through the samples.…”

Anatomic thermochromic tissue-mimicking phantom of the lumbar spine for pre-clinical evaluation of MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) ablation of the facet joint

“…Thermochromic phantoms can be composed of polyacrylamide gel and thermochromic ink, which allows for irreversible color change at set temperature thresholds [12]. Another study previously demonstrated the successful creation of a thermochromic phantom by combining polyvinyl alcohol crygogel with thermochromic ink [13]. In addition, swine spine and vertebrae experiments were conducted to assess the localization and efficacy of MRgFUS for spine lesions using MR thermometry [14].…”