A fast boundary element method for the scattering analysis of high-intensity focused ultrasound

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) techniques are promising modalities for the non-invasive treatment of cancer. For HIFU therapies of, e.g., liver cancer, one of the main challenges is the accurate focusing of the acoustic field inside a ribcage. Computational methods can play an important role in the patient-specific planning of these transcostal HIFU treatments. This requires the accurate modeling of acoustic scattering at ribcages. The use of a boundary element method (BEM) is an effective approach for this purpose because only the boundaries of the ribs have to be discretized instead of the standard approach to model the entire volume around the ribcage. This paper combines fast algorithms that improve the efficiency of BEM specifically for the high-frequency range necessary for transcostal HIFU applications. That is, a Galerkin discretized Burton-Miller formulation is used in combination with preconditioning and matrix compression techniques. In particular, quick convergence is achieved with the operator preconditioner that has been designed with on-surface radiation conditions for the high-frequency approximation of the Neumann-to-Dirichlet map. Realistic computations of acoustic scattering at 1 MHz on a human ribcage model demonstrate the effectiveness of this dedicated BEM algorithm for HIFU scattering analysis.