Quantitative assessment of reactive oxygen sonochemically generated by cavitation bubbles

Acoustic cavitation bubbles can induce not only a thermal bioeffect but also a chemical bioeffect. When cavitation bubbles collapse and oscillate violently, they produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) that cause irreversible changes to the tissue. A sonosensitizer can promote such ROS generation. A treatment method using a sonosensitizer is called sonodynamic treatment. Rose bengal (RB) is one of the sonosensitizers whose in vivo and in vitro studies have been reported. In sonodynamic treatment, it is important to produce ROS at a high efficiency. For the efficient generation of ROS, a triggered high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) sequence has been proposed. In this study, cavitation bubbles were generated in a chamber where RB solution was sealed, and a high-speed camera captured the behavior of these cavitation bubbles. The amount of ROS was also quantified by a potassium iodide (KI) method and compared with high-speed camera pictures to investigate the effectiveness of the triggered HIFU sequence. As a result, ROS could be obtained efficiently by this sequence.