The Control of temperature in Cavitation of Skin Sonoporation

A Franz diffusion cell is modified in order to maintain a constant coupling fluid temperature during the sonoporation of porcine skin. The passive transport of calcein that followed sonoporation at each of these coupling fluid temperatures was then quantified with spectrofluorometry. A comparison was made between the post-sonoporation transports in order to determine the influence of the coupling fluid temperature. The transdermal transport of calcein following sonoporation increased with increasing coupling fluid temperature. After 5 hours of post-sonoporation diffusion at room temperature, the mean transport achieved with a coupling fluid temperature of 46°C was 1.5 times that achieved with a coupling fluid temperature of 33°C and 5.8 times that achieved with a coupling fluid temperature of 14°C. These increases were attributed to the well-established relationship between skin temperature and skin permeability, as well as the potential influence of temperature on the effectiveness of individual inertial cavitation collapse events.