LIPUS Stimulation of the knee cartilage: in-vitro to in-vivo translation

A promising application of LIPUS is the possibility to regenerate damaged cartilage in the knee joint by stimulating in-situ adipose-derived stem cells and inducing chondrogenesis. Preclinical trials are mandatory to validate the protocol, but unfortunately it is often difficult to set the right set-up for in-vivo scenarios in order to stimulate the target in the correct way. The objective of this work is to give general guidelines for applying a controlled US stimulation to the knee joint and in particular to: select suitable transducer dimension, properly position it with respect to the selected joint and determine the transducer input signal amplitude to induce the wanted pressure at target accounting for tissues attenuation.