Research Shows That Ultrasounds Maybe Used to Seal Punctured Lungs

Engineers at the University of Washington have devised a way to use ultrasound to seal punctured lungs. The Engineers are working with Harborview doctors to create a device that uses high-intensity focused ultrasounds. Researchers have already published their first experiment using ultrasound on lung punctures.

According to the University of Washington news, ultrasound, especially high-intensity focused ones is being looked into, to be used in a number of different treatments particularly, bloodless surgery, numbing pain and even destroying cancerous tissues. High-intensity focused ultrasound have ten times more powerful beams that those used in imaging.

Shahram Vaezy, a University of Washington associate professor of bioengineering said that no one has ever looked at treating lungs with ultrasound since physicists were skeptical that it would ever work since air blocks transmission of ultrasound and the lungs are full of air sacs. However, experiments conducted by the engineers show that punctures on the lungs, specially along the surface, can heal with ultrasound therapy. Vaezy however cautioned that the experiment is still in the early stages and is not yet being tested on humans.

University of Washington News reports that lung injuries are common and bleeding could often be stopped by packing the wound and applying pressure. Other treatments involve inserting a straw and draining the blood and air so that the wound can heal. In extreme cases, doctors have to operate which means sewing up the organ or removing a section of the lungs. The device hopes to replace the painful and invasive procedure involved in treating lung punctures.

The device works by concentrating the high-intensity ultrasound beams through a lens at a specific spot inside the body on the patient's lungs; the rays heat the blood cells until they form a seal and unlike a laser beam, the tissue between the device and the punctured lung will not get hot. According to Washington University News, the process can be compared to focusing sunlight with a magnifying glass and creates an extremely hot spot the size of a grain of rice. Vaezy said, "You can penetrate deep into the body and deliver the energy to the bleeding very accurately."

The device was tested on pigs' lungs and results showed that the high-intensity ultrasound sealed the leaks in one to two minutes. These results were published in the Journal of Trauma and it further showed that 95 percent of the 70 incisions were stable after two minutes of treatment. The research was funded the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute.

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