Studies on ultrasound enhanced dye diffusion through brain mimic material

Utilization of ultrasound for effective drug delivery in post-operative treatment of brain cancer has been the focus of study by many research workers. Generation of ultrasound near the brain tissues has been found to enhance the drug diffusion into the brain parenchyma. Most of the work in the literature has been carried out in-vitro using brain mimic samples or procine brain samples.

In this paper we report in-vitro diffusion experiments using commercial ultrasonic transducers and brain mimic material in a diffusion cell. Bromophenol blue dye solution is used as the drug. The experiments are carried out as preliminary investigations to prove that generation of ultrasound enhances the diffusion rate through the membrane. With the ultrasonic transducer used in the experiments, it is found that pulsed ultrasound of frequency 120 KHZ and of pulse frequency 80Hz and duty cycle 12% enhances the extent of diffusion by about 20%. We conclude that use of ultrasound can reasonably enhance the diffusion rate in in-vitro cases.