Bioacoustics Research Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 405 North Mathews, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Oct;130(4):2203-11. doi: 10.1121/1.3626162.
Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) is an imaging technique that can be used to quantify tissue microstructure giving rise to scattered ultrasound. Other ultrasonic properties, e.g., sound speed and attenuation, of tissues have been estimated versus temperature elevation and found to have a dependence with temperature. Therefore, it is hypothesized that QUS parameters may be sensitive to changes in tissue microstructure due to temperature elevation. Ultrasonic backscatter experiments were performed on tissue-mimicking phantoms and freshly excised rabbit and beef liver samples. The phantoms were made of agar and contained either mouse mammary carcinoma cells (4T1) or chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO) as scatterers. All scatterers were uniformly distributed spatially at random throughout the phantoms. All the samples were scanned using a 20-MHz single-element f/3 transducer. Quantitative ultrasound parameters were estimated from the samples versus increases in temperature from 37 °C to 50 °C in 1 °C increments. Two QUS parameters were estimated from the backscatter coefficient [effective scatterer diameter (ESD) and effective acoustic concentration (EAC)] using a spherical Gaussian scattering model. Significant increases in ESD and decreases in EAC of 20%-40% were observed in the samples over the range of temperatures examined. The results of this study indicate that QUS parameters are sensitive to changes in temperature.
定量超声（QUS）是一种成像技术，可用于量化产生散射超声的组织微观结构。已经估计了组织的其他超声特性，例如声速和衰减，与温度升高的关系，并发现它们与温度有关。因此，假设 QUS 参数可能对由于温度升高导致的组织微观结构变化敏感。在组织模拟体模和新鲜切除的兔和牛肝样本上进行了超声背散射实验。这些体模由琼脂制成，并且含有作为散射体的小鼠乳腺癌细胞（4T1）或中国仓鼠卵巢细胞（CHO）。所有散射体在体模中均匀地随机分布在空间中。所有样品均使用 20MHz 单元素 f/3 换能器进行扫描。定量超声参数是根据从 37°C 到 50°C 以 1°C 增量增加的温度从样品中估算出来的。使用球形高斯散射模型从背散射系数[有效散射体直径（ESD）和有效声浓度（EAC）]估算了两个 QUS 参数。在检查的温度范围内，样品中的 ESD 显著增加，EAC 降低了 20％-40％。这项研究的结果表明，QUS 参数对温度变化敏感。
