Drug Delivery System | Observing Destruction of Microcapsules

A significant amount of medical engineering research and development is being conducted into Drug Delivery Systems (DDS).
A DDS is a revolutionary medical system that involves encapsulating a drug in minute plastic microcapsules, which allows the drug to pass through the mouth cavity, esophagus, or blood vessels to the affected area. When the microcapsules reach the affected area, they are destroyed by ultrasound to deliver a concentrated dose of the drug. One extremely important topic for the development of such technologies is to determine how the microcapsule size and material and the ultrasound intensity and frequency affect the efficacy of the direct delivery of the drug to the affected area.

We recorded images of the instant, localized destruction of microcapsules.
The images were recorded at 250,000 frames per second. The images below were extracted at 4 µs intervals from the start of ultrasound vibrations. The images show a time sequence from the spherical microcapsule starting to deform until it fails completely. They also show the macroscopic behavior of the form of microcapsule destruction and drug dispersion.

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