Lee John H, Boning Duane S, Anthony Brian W
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Ultrasound Med Biol. 2018 May;44(5):1086-1099. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2018.01.008. Epub 2018 Feb 23.
Concentration measurement of particles in suspension is an important procedure performed in biological and clinical laboratories. Existing methods based on instruments such as hemocytometers, Coulter counters and flow cytometers are often laborious, destructive and incapable of in vivo measurements. On the other hand, an ultrasound-based method can be non-destructive and non-invasive and have the potential for in vivo measurement. In this work, a method is presented that estimates absolute particle concentration from high-frequency B-mode ultrasound images of a sample. The method is based on the detection and characterization of the echoes from individual particles to estimate the effective slice thickness of the image. Calibration using a reference sample is not required because the estimation is entirely image based. The particle type differential is also performed by using the backscatter coefficient of each detected echoes. The method is demonstrated by measuring microsphere suspensions as well as human T-cell suspensions. The proposed method has a wide range of potential clinical applications including non-invasive measurement of cell concentration in biological fluids such as cerebrospinal fluid.
悬浮液中颗粒的浓度测量是生物和临床实验室中执行的一项重要程序。基于血细胞计数器、库尔特计数器和流式细胞仪等仪器的现有方法通常费力、具有破坏性且无法进行体内测量。另一方面，基于超声的方法可以是非破坏性和非侵入性的，并且具有体内测量的潜力。在这项工作中，提出了一种从样品的高频B型超声图像估计绝对颗粒浓度的方法。该方法基于对单个颗粒回波的检测和表征来估计图像的有效切片厚度。由于估计完全基于图像，因此不需要使用参考样品进行校准。颗粒类型差异也通过使用每个检测到的回波的反向散射系数来执行。通过测量微球悬浮液以及人T细胞悬浮液来证明该方法。所提出的方法具有广泛的潜在临床应用，包括对生物流体（如脑脊液）中细胞浓度的非侵入性测量。
