Modeling of Ultrasound Stimulation of Adolescent Pancreas for Insulin Release Therapy

Our previous published studies have focused on safety and effectiveness of using therapeutic ultrasound (TUS) for treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in preclinical models. Here we present a set of simulation studies to explore potential ultrasound application schemes that would be feasible in a clinical setting.

Using the multiphysics modeling tool OnScale, we created two-dimensional (2D) models of the human abdomen from CT images captured from one normal weight adolescent patient, and one obese adolescent patient. Based on our previous studies, the frequency of our TUS was 1 MHz delivered from a planar unfocused transducer. We tested five different insonation angles, as well as four ultrasound intensities combined with four different duty factors and five durations of application to explore how these variables effect the peak pressure and temperature delivered to the pancreas as well as surrounding tissue in the model.

We determined that ultrasound applied directly from the anterior of the patient abdomen at 5 W/cm² delivered consistent acoustic pressures to the pancreas at the levels which we have previously found to be effective at inducing an insulin release from preclinical models.

Our modeling work indicates that it may be feasible to non-invasively apply TUS in clinical treatment of T2DM.