{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,29]],"date-time":"2026-10-29T06:36:08Z","timestamp":1793255768520,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"IOP Publishing","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,29]],"date-time":"2026-10-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793232000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":28,"URL":"https:\/\/publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org\/iop-standard\/v1"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,29]],"date-time":"2026-10-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1793232000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":28,"URL":"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/info\/page\/text-and-data-mining"}],"funder":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology Hongliu Outstanding Young Talent Support Program","award":["062208"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["062208"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03panb555","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["iopscience.iop.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Biomed. Phys. Eng. Express"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,1]]},"abstract":"Abstract<\/jats:title>\n \n Objective.<\/jats:italic>\n To evaluate the thermal safety and lesion conformity of low-duty-cycle pulsed ultrasound in an\n ex vivo<\/jats:italic>\n liver model adjacent to large vessels.\n Impact Statement.<\/jats:italic>\n This study evaluates a low-duty-cycle pulsed ultrasound strategy that may reduce dependence on thermal dose accumulation while preserving visible vessel-like structures under controlled\n ex vivo<\/jats:italic>\n non-perfused conditions.\n Introduction.<\/jats:italic>\n Conventional thermal ablation for hepatocellular carcinoma is limited by the \u2018heat sink effect,\u2019 causing marginal residual tumors and risking irreversible damage to major blood vessels. Quantitative investigations defining the thermal safety boundaries of histotripsy to overcome these limitations are currently lacking.\n Methods.<\/jats:italic>\n Combining simulation optimization and\n ex-vivo<\/jats:italic>\n validation, an acoustic-thermal coupled model identified an optimal protocol (2.0 MHz, 37 MPa, 0.5% duty cycle (DC)).\n Ex-vivo<\/jats:italic>\n porcine liver experiments compared this cavitation ablation head-to-head with continuous-wave thermal ablation near major vessels, assessing morphology, conformity index (CI), and vascular integrity. The\n ex vivo<\/jats:italic>\n model lacked active vascular perfusion, this study did not directly reproduce\n in vivo<\/jats:italic>\n convective heat-sink conditions. The vessel-adjacent model was used to evaluate lesion formation and vessel-wall structural preservation under controlled non-perfused conditions.\n Results.<\/jats:italic>\n Simulations showed a 0.5% DC kept peak temperatures below the 60 \u00b0C denaturation threshold.\n Ex-vivo<\/jats:italic>\n , the cavitation group achieved homogeneous liquefaction, sharp boundaries, and preserved adjacent vessels, yielding an approximate geometric CI of 96.8 \u00b1 2.1%. The thermal group showed more irregular lesion morphology and lower geometric conformity under the tested\n ex vivo<\/jats:italic>\n conditions, showing irregular defects and a lower CI of 71.2 \u00b1 15.6% (\n P<\/jats:italic>\n < 0.01).\n Conclusion<\/jats:italic>\n . These findings support the feasibility of low-duty-cycle pulsed ultrasound as a non-thermal ablation strategy near vessel-like structures in\n ex vivo<\/jats:italic>\n liver tissue, but its ability to mitigate heat-sink effects requires validation in perfused and\n in vivo<\/jats:italic>\n models.\n <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1088\/2057-1976\/aeb425","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,14]],"date-time":"2026-10-14T22:47:47Z","timestamp":1792018067000},"page":"055074","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1088\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Low-duty-cycle pulsed ultrasound for\n ex vivo<\/i>\n liver tissue ablation: thermal safety, lesion conformity, and vascular structure preservation"],"prefix":"10.1088","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0269-9612","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Xiao","family":"Li","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"project-administration","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8848-6846","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Ke","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"ZhenXin","family":"Shen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-1955-6944","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"YaKun","family":"Yan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"WeiHong","family":"Meng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"DongYa","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"HongYan","family":"Duan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Lanzhou University of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"266","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"bpexaeb425bib1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"7","DOI":"10.3322\/caac.21654","type":"journal-article","article-title":"Cancer statistics, 2021","volume":"71","author":"Siegel","year":"2021","journal-title":"CA Cancer J. 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