Prevention of tissue damage by water jet during cavitation

Cavitation bubbles accompany explosive vaporization of water following pulsed energy deposition in liquid media. Bubbles collapsing at the tip of a surgical endoprobe produce a powerful and damaging water jet propagating forward in the axial direction of the probe. We studied interaction of such jet with tissue using fast flash photography and modeled the flow dynamics using a two-dimensional Rayleigh-type hydrodynamic simulation. Maximal velocity of the jet generated at pulse energies of up to 1 mJ was about 80 m/s. The jet can produce tissue damage at a distance exceeding the radius of the cavitation bubble by a factor of 4. We demonstrate that formation of this flow and associated tissue damage can be prevented by application of the concave endoprobes that slow down the propagation of the back boundary of the bubble. Similar effect can be achieved by positioning an obstacle to the flow, such as a ring behind the tip.