This International standard is applicable to medical diagnostic ultrasound fields. This standard establishes – parameters related to thermal and non-thermal exposure aspects of diagnostic ultrasonic fields; – methods for the determination of an exposure parameter relating to temperature rise in theoretical tissue-equivalent models, resulting from absorption of ultrasound; – methods for the determination of an exposure parameter appropriate to certain nonthermal effects. NOTE 1 In Clause 3 of this standard, SI units are used (per ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, ed. 5, Annex I b) in the Notes below definitions of certain parameters, such as beam areas and intensities; it may be convenient to use decimal multiples or submultiples in practice. Users must take care of decimal prefixes used in combination with the units when using and calculating numerical data. For example, beam area may be specified in cm2 and intensities in W/cm2 or mW/cm2. NOTE 2 Underlying calculations have been done from 0,25 MHz to 15 MHz for MI and 0,5 MHz to 15 MHz for TI. NOTE 3 The thermal indices are steady state estimates based on the acoustic output power required to produce a 1°C temperature rise in tissue conforming to the “homogeneous tissue 0,3 dBcm-1MHz-1 attenuation model” [1 ] 1) and may not be appropriate for radiation force imaging, or similar techniques that employ pulses or pulse bursts of sufficient duration to create a significant transient temperature rise. [2]