Imaging the destruction of individual ultrasound contrast microbubbles with diagnostic ultrasound

Ultrasound imaging of ultrasound contrast agent fragmentation in a water bath was performed with the color Doppler mode of the HDI 5000 ( Phillips Ultrasound). A highly diluted suspension of ultrasound contrast microbubbles (Optison(R)) was injected into the water bath such that individual microbubbles passed through the image plane every few seconds. Decorrelation of the signal, along with the appearance of multiple signals, suggests that single microbubble fragmentation was observed, with daughter bubbles being formed from the original microbubbles, depending on the applied acoustic pressure. (C) 2004 Acoustical Society of America.