TMC Science and Technology, Brussels, Belgium.
Tide Microfluidics, Enschede, The Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 6;7(1):12746. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-13078-9.
B-lines are ultrasound-imaging artifacts, which correlate with several lung-pathologies. However, their understanding and characterization is still largely incomplete. To further study B-lines, lung-phantoms were developed by trapping a layer of microbubbles in tissue-mimicking gel. To simulate the alveolar size reduction typical of various pathologies, 170 and 80 µm bubbles were used for phantom-type 1 and 2, respectively. A normal alveolar diameter is approximately 280 µm. A LA332 linear-array connected to the ULA-OP platform was used for imaging. Standard ultrasound (US) imaging at 4.5 MHz was performed. Subsequently, a multi-frequency approach was used where images were sequentially generated using orthogonal sub-bands centered at different frequencies (3, 4, 5, and 6 MHz). Results show that B-lines appear predominantly with phantom-type 2. Moreover, the multi-frequency approach revealed that the B-lines originate from a specific portion of the US spectrum. These results can give rise to significant clinical applications since, if further confirmed by extensive in-vivo studies, the native frequency of B-lines could provide a quantitative-measure of the state of the lung.
B 线是超声成像伪影，与多种肺部疾病相关。然而，对其的理解和特征描述仍然很不完善。为了进一步研究 B 线，通过将一层微泡困在组织模拟凝胶中来开发肺体模。为了模拟各种病理的肺泡尺寸缩小，分别使用 170 和 80 µm 的气泡来制作体模 1 和 2。正常肺泡直径约为 280 µm。使用连接到 ULA-OP 平台的 LA332 线性阵列进行成像。以 4.5 MHz 的标准超声 (US) 成像进行。随后，使用多频方法，使用中心频率不同的正交子带（3、4、5 和 6 MHz）顺序生成图像。结果表明，B 线主要出现在体模 2 中。此外，多频方法表明 B 线源自 US 频谱的特定部分。这些结果可能会带来重要的临床应用，因为如果通过广泛的体内研究进一步证实，B 线的固有频率可以提供对肺部状态的定量测量。
