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. 2011 Nov 1;7(4):350-359.
doi: 10.2174/157340511798038648.

A Review of Vibro-acoustography and its Applications in Medicine

Matthew W Urban  1 , Azra Alizad, Wilkins Aquino, James F Greenleaf, Mostafa Fatemi
Affiliations

A Review of Vibro-acoustography and its Applications in Medicine

Matthew W Urban et al. Curr Med Imaging Rev. .

Abstract

In recent years, several new techniques based on the radiation force of ultrasound have been developed. Vibro-acoustography is a speckle-free ultrasound based imaging modality that can visualize normal and abnormal soft tissue through mapping the acoustic response of the object to a harmonic radiation force induced by ultrasound. In vibro-acoustography, the ultrasound energy is converted from high ultrasound frequencies to a low acoustic frequency (acoustic emission) that is often two orders of magnitude smaller than the ultrasound frequency. The acoustic emission is normally detected by a hydrophone. In medical imaging, vibroacoustography has been tested on breast, prostate, arteries, liver, and thyroid. These studies have shown that vibro-acoustic data can be used for quantitative evaluation of elastic properties. This paper presents an overview of vibro-acoustography and its applications in the areas of biomedicine.

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Figures

Fig. (1)
Fig. (1)
Simplified vibro-acoustography system with two ultrasound beams focused at a common point. The excitation point is scanned within the object, and the acoustic emission is recorded by the hydrophone and an image is formed.
Fig. (2)
Fig. (2)
(a) X-ray image of a breast tissue specimen. The arrow points to a microcalcification that is seen as a bright spot at the center. (b) VA image of the tissue sample. The microcalcification is clearly identified as a bright spots. The VA image also clearly shows the structure of the soft tissue. [© 2004 IEEE. Reproduced with permission from [86].]
Fig. (3)
Fig. (3)
In vivo images of human breast. A) X-ray mammography showing partially calcified mass; B) VA scan at 40 kHz and 2 cm in depth showing the mass.
Fig. (4)
Fig. (4)
a) X-ray image of an excised human prostate showing a single calcification. b) Ultrasound image of the prostate sample. This image presents an excessive amount of speckle and fails to reveal the calcification, c) Vibro-acoustography scan of the same tissue focused at 15 mm depth inside the sample. This speckle-free image shows the calcification at the center of prostate. [Reprinted from [95] with permission from Elsevier.]
Fig. (5)
Fig. (5)
a) Diagram of experimental setup, b) Plane views for the spatial distribution of elastic moduli found as solution to the inverse problem for the z-x plane, the z-y plane, and the x-y plane. [© 2010 IEEE. Reproduced with permission from [108].]
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