Fig 1.
The experimental set-up for the in vitro flow system.
In a water tank held at 37°C, the clot is mounted within a capillary tube through which plasma is drawn from an upstream plasma reservoir to a downstream syringe pump. Acoustic absorber was used to line the 4 vertical walls of the water tank (not shown) and the bottom of the tank (shown), with approximately 3 cm of the capillary tube visible through a window in the acoustic absorber.
Fig 2.
Thrombolysis of human and porcine clots.
(a) Fractional clot loss (FCL) for porcine clots in porcine plasma (n = 5, black), human clots in porcine plasma (n = 12, light grey), and porcine clots in human plasma (n = 12, dark grey) exposed to plasma alone, rt-PA (3.15 μg/mL), and rt-PA (3.15 μg/mL) with Definity® and intermittent 120 kHz ultrasound (US). Statistically significant differences in FCL (p<0.05) across treatments are denoted by (*). No difference (p>0.05) in FCL was observed for porcine clots in porcine plasma exposed to rt-PA without or with the use of Definity® and US as an adjuvant compared to plasma alone. (b) Average lytic rate (ALR) for the same clots and treatments shown in 2(a). Statistically significant differences in ALR (p < 0.05) across treatments are denoted by (*). † Data with human clots in human plasma (n = 12, white) was reproduced from [22].
Table 1.
Tukey p-values for cross-species thrombolysis experiments within each combination of clot/plasma.
Table 2.
Tukey p-values for cross-species thrombolysis experiments within each treatment protocol.
Fig 3.
Measured ultraharmonic and broadband emissions for trials involving US exposure.
Cavitation dose is shown for porcine clots in porcine plasma (black), human clots in porcine plasma (light grey), and porcine clots in human plasma (dark grey) when treated with rt-PA, Definity®, and 120 kHz US. † Data with human clots in human plasma (dashed line) was reproduced from [22].
Fig 4.
Representative human (a) and porcine (b) clots with standard H&E staining.
Fig 5.
Representative human (a, c, e) and porcine (b, d, f) SEM images of clot surfaces.
Images are at 800x magnification (a, b; bar = 25 μm), 3500x magnification (c, d; bar = 5 μm), and 7000x magnification (e, f; bar = 2.5 μm)
Fig 6.
Box plots showing the range, median, 25th quartile, and 75th quartile of measured fiber diameter for human (n = 130) and porcine (n = 140) clots as measured by blinded observers from SEM images. Outliers are represented by the symbol "+" and statistically significant differences are denoted with a "*".
Table 3.
Human and porcine blood composition and coagulation characteristics.