Lu Min-Hua, Zheng Yong-Ping, Huang Qing-Hua
Department of Health Technology and Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2007 Jan;54(1):114-21. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2006.884646.
The alteration of tissue stiffness is generally known to be associated with pathological changes. Ultrasound indentation is one of the methods that can be used to assess the mechanical properties of the soft tissues. It uses a flat-ended ultrasound transducer to directly contact the tissue to sense tissue deformation under an applied load. This paper introduced a novel noncontact ultrasound indentation system using water jet compression. The key idea was to utilize a water jet as the indenter as well as the coupling medium for propagation of the ultrasound beam. High frequency focused ultrasound (20 MHz) was used to measure the indentation deformation at a microscopic level. It has been demonstrated that the system could effectively assess the tissue-mimic phantoms with different stiffness. Water jet coupling allows the system to conduct C-scan on soft tissues rapidly and conveniently. By applying different pressures while taking C-scan sequences, the modulus images of the phantoms could be obtained based on the applied pressure and the phantom deformation and thickness. This paper presented the preliminary results on gel phantoms. The spatial resolution, the contrast resolution of the measurements and the reproducibility of the results were also discussed.
一般认为组织硬度的改变与病理变化相关。超声压痕法是可用于评估软组织力学性能的方法之一。它使用平头超声换能器直接接触组织，以感测施加负载下的组织变形。本文介绍了一种采用水射流压缩的新型非接触式超声压痕系统。其关键思想是利用水射流作为压头以及超声束传播的耦合介质。高频聚焦超声（20兆赫）用于在微观层面测量压痕变形。已证明该系统能够有效评估不同硬度的仿组织体模。水射流耦合使该系统能够快速、方便地对软组织进行C扫描。通过在采集C扫描序列时施加不同压力，可基于施加的压力、体模变形和厚度获得体模的模量图像。本文展示了凝胶体模的初步结果。还讨论了测量的空间分辨率、对比度分辨率以及结果的可重复性。
