Thermal therapeutic method for selective treatment of deep-lying tissue by combining laser and high-intensity focused ultrasound energy

Photothermal therapy is performed by delivering laser radiation into the target lesion containing tissue chromophores so as to induce localized heating. For high treatment efficacy, the laser wavelength should be selected to maximize the absorption of incident laser radiation in the tissue chromophores. However, even with the optimal laser wavelength, both the absorption and the scattering of laser energy in tissue openly hamper treatment efficacy in deep-lying lesions. To overcome the limitation, we propose a dual thermal therapeutic method in which both laser and acoustic energies are transmitted to increase therapeutic depth while maintaining high target selectivity of photothermal therapy. Through skin-mimicking phantom experiments, it was verified that the two different energies are complementary in elevation of tissue temperature, and the treatment depth using laser radiation is increased along with acoustic energy.