Quantitative Ultrasound in Cancer Imaging (original) (raw)
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Insights into Imaging, 2021
Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) aims at quantifying interactions between ultrasound and biological tissues. QUS techniques extract fundamental physical properties of tissues based on interactions between ultrasound waves and tissue microstructure. These techniques provide quantitative information on sub-resolution properties that are not visible on grayscale (B-mode) imaging. Quantitative data may be represented either as a global measurement or as parametric maps overlaid on B-mode images. Recently, major ultrasound manufacturers have released speed of sound, attenuation, and backscatter packages for tissue characterization and imaging. Established and emerging clinical applications are currently limited and include liver fibrosis staging, liver steatosis grading, and breast cancer characterization. On the other hand, most biological tissues have been studied using experimental QUS methods, and quantitative datasets are available in the literature. This educational review addresses t...
Improved diagnostics through quantitative ultrasound imaging
Conference proceedings : ... Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual Conference, 2009
Conventional B-mode imaging in ultrasound consists of displaying the log-compressed envelope of the backscattered signal. While clinical ultrasonic B-mode images have good spatial resolution, i.e., better than a millimeter, the contrast resolution of ultrasonic B-mode images is typically low. However, additional information is contained in the ultrasonic backscattered signal, which can be used to create images related to tissue microstructure. Because diagnosis of disease is typically based on histological examination of tissue microstructure, the ability to quantify and describe tissue microstructure through ultrasound may result in improved diagnostic capabilities of ultrasound. Tissue-mimicking phantoms and animal models of breast cancer were used to assess the ability of novel ultrasonic imaging techniques to quantify microstructure. Four parameters were extracted from the ultrasonic backscattered signal and related to the microstructure. The effective scatterer diameter (ESD) a...
After over fifty years of development, ultrasound imaging (one of four major medical imaging technology) has become an indispensable part of medical imaging. By virtue of its advantages of low-cost, real-time, non-rays, ultrasound imaging is constantly accepted by people from all works. With the development of medical ultrasound imaging technology, ultrasound imaging reveals the clinical disease more accurate. This report based ultrasonic paper introduces the basic knowledge of ultrasound in medicine, focusing on the medical ultrasound imaging technology and its classification.
Quantitative Ultrasound in Soft Tissues
2013
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Towards Dynamic Contrast Specific Ultrasound Tomography - Nature, Scientific Reports
We report on the first study demonstrating the ability of a recently-developed, contrast-enhanced, ultrasound imaging method, referred to as cumulative phase delay imaging (CPDI), to image and quantify ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) kinetics. Unlike standard ultrasound tomography, which exploits changes in speed of sound and attenuation, CPDI is based on a marker specific to UCAs, thus enabling dynamic contrast-specific ultrasound tomography (DCS-UST). For breast imaging, DCS-UST will lead to a more practical, faster, and less operator-dependent imaging procedure compared to standard echo-contrast, while preserving accurate imaging of contrast kinetics. Moreover, a linear relation between CPD values and ultrasound second-harmonic intensity was measured (coefficient of determination = 0.87). DCS-UST can find clinical applications as a diagnostic method for breast cancer localization, adding important features to multi-parametric ultrasound tomography of the breast. Nowadays, there is growing interest in the development of imaging techniques which are capable of detecting and localizing angiogenesis and neovascularization. These processes induce specific changes in the microvas-cular structure, represent an established marker for tumours, and also provide indications of tumour aggressiveness 1. In particular, dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound (DCE-US) imaging shows promise, with many novel approaches focusing on the direct and/or indirect characterization of the microvasculature. However, when considering the various imaging options, several challenges emerge for imaging the breast. Typical ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs) are gas-filled microbubbles with diameters ranging between 1 and 10 μ m; they are therefore suitable for intravenous injection and can flow through the smallest microvessels. This phenomenon is exploited by super-localization ultrasound techniques which overcome the diffraction limit and are capable of imaging the microvasculature with a spatial-resolution as small as 8–12 μ m 2,3. Additionally, these techniques provide access to accurate velocity maps, thus offering a powerful tool for the study of microvascu-lar blood flow. However, the relatively long imaging time needed (e.g., > 2 minutes per plane 2), the influence of motion, and the difficulties in imaging and localizing single microbubbles in deep tissue, pose limitations to the use of these modalities in large organs. Another recently-developed imaging method is acoustic angiography 4. With this technique, high spatial-resolution images (in the order of 100 μ m) are obtained using tenfold higher frequencies than with normal DCE-US echo-imaging. Once again, the key lies in the UCAs peculiar response to ultrasound. Because of their highly nonlinear behaviour, UCAs can backscatter high-frequency broadband echo signals (15–35 MHz), which can be used to achieve improved spatial-resolution 5. However, frequency-dependent attenuation practically constrains the applicability of this technique to relatively small depths, such as those required for imaging the peripheral zone of the prostate (1–2 cm). Other techniques chose a different path rather than targeting high spatial-resolution. Standard DCE-US imaging (i.e., Harmonic Imaging, Pulse Inversion, and Amplitude Modulation) is an echo graphic technique, which in essence exploits variations in the second harmonic amplitude to generate real-time images of UCA kinetics when flowing through the vasculature 6,7. In particular, the analysis of microbubble flow-dynamics through the vessels can be used to reveal changes in the vasculature itself. To this end, several techniques which are based on the quantification of parameters related to UCA perfusion and dispersion have been proposed 8–12. Although the typical DCE-US spatial resolution is in the order of 1 mm, hence unsuitable for imaging microvascular changes, these techniques are still able to infer relevant information in relation to the 'angiogenetic switch' (the transition from a pre-vascular to a vascularized tumour phenotype) required for cancer to grow beyond 1–2 mm in diameter 13,14 .