Ultrasound impact on cells
More and more ultrasound examinations are today performed in the daily clinical practice. Ultrasound is considered to be a safe method, however, one must remember that heating and mechanical impact on the tissue occur during exposure. It is also possible that the exposure pattern, in the recent years, have changed due to the fast technical development in ultrasound imaging, with new quantitation methods and three dimensional ultrasound.
One of the aims of this project is therefore to investigate the impact on different cell types when being exposed by common clinical ultrasound, in applications with and without contrast bubbles. Another goal is to evaluate at which intensity and exposure time of the ultrasound that gives a negative effects on cells which are detectable. The main focus is to study the impact of ultrasound exposure on fetus and endothelial function in blood vessels.
Methods
The impact of the ultrasound exposure will be studied in vitro, for example with cell lines (endothelium) and stem cells (embryonic). The cells will be cultured in special cell culture dishes and will then be exposed to ultrasound at different intensities and exposure times. Thereafter several tests will be made to in order to see if, and how, the cells have responded to the ultrasound exposure. We also consider doing some ex vivo-studies of blood vessels.
Results
This is a relatively new project, no preliminary results exist yet. One pilot study has been performed on the clinic to collect information about the ultrasound settings that are being used and the exposure time when screening fetus (week 12-28) and oocyte before fertilization. The information will be used to make the in vitro study more realistic.
Collaborations
This is a collaboration project between STH (School of Technology and health) and CLINTEC (The Department of Clinical Sciences, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge.
Contact person
, , , , , Outi Hovatta (KI) och Magnus Westgren (KI)
Search words
Ultrasound, fetus, embryonic stem cells, blood vessel, endothelium cells