Methods and Systems for Non-Invasive Treatment of Tissue Using High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy

Minimally invasive and non-invasive therapeutic ultrasound treatments can be used to ablate, necrotize, and/or otherwise damage tissue. High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), for example, is used to thermally or mechanically damage tissue. HIFU treatments can also cause mechanical disruption of tissue with well-demarcated regions of mechanically emulsified treatment volumes that have little remaining cellular integrity. For certain medical applications, tissue emulsification may be more favorable than thermal damage because it produces liquefied volumes that can be more easily removed or absorbed by the body than thermally coagulated solid volumes.