Guest lecture - Robin Cleveland: Lithotripsy: a shocking blow to kidney stones
Prof. Robin Cleveland from University of Oxford will on Friday morning give a guest lecture on high intensity ultrasound imaging. Later the same day he will be one of the opponents when Fabrice Prieur defends his PhD.
Time and place: – ,
Seminarrom C (Rom 3437)
Shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) is a clinical procedure whereby shock waves, generated outside the body, are used to break-up kidney stones. First introduced in 1980 it revolutionized the treatment of renal calculi and at its peak about 85% of kidney stones in the United States were treated by SWL. In the past decade or so there has been a shift from SWL towards minimally invasive procedures, in particular, ureteroscopy. Despite the wide spread use of SWL there is no agreement in the literature as to the mechanism, or mechanisms, by which shock waves fragment kidney stones. In addition, it is now recognized that a clinical dose of shock waves will induce renal injury in most, if not all, treated kidneys. Both the significance of tissue damage, and the mechanisms that are responsible for the damage, are under dispute. This talk will address: how lithotripters generate shock waves, the mechanisms that likely play a role in stone fragmentation and tissue damage, the current state of lithotripsy and what its future may be.
Robin Cleveland is a Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. He obtained BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and the PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He then spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle. This was followed by 14 years in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. He joined Oxford University in 2011. He carries out research in nonlinear acoustics, in addition to SWL he has worked on: sonic boom propagation in the atmosphere; nonlinear distortion of B-mode diagnostic ultrasound; the interaction of acoustics with both; high intensity focused ultrasound propagation in the body for thermal ablation; and shock wave propagation and cavitation generation in mercury. He is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and an Associate Editor of Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.