Emerging Ultrasound Technologies for Early Markers of Disease

Abstract

Ultrasound has been a popular clinical imaging modality for decades. It is well established as a means of displaying the macroscopic anatomy of soft-tissue structures. While conventional ultrasound methodologies (i.e., B-mode and Doppler methods) are well proven and continue to advance technically on a daily basis, e.g. by extending into higher frequencies and taking advantage of harmonic phenomena in tissues, fundamentally new ultrasound technologies also are emerging and offer exciting promise for making significant improvements in the clinical imaging of disease. These emerging methods include spectrum analysis, elasticity imaging, contrast-agent methods, and advanced flow detection and measurement techniques. Each provides independent information and, used alone, each can provide powerful new imaging capabilities; combined with each other, their capabilities may be even greater in many applications; and all in principle can be used in concert with other imaging modalities to offer the possibility of further improvements in disease detection, evaluation, and monitoring.

Quantitative Ultrasound in Cancer Imaging

“…As described in previous publications, our classification studies used standard and custom software for implementing ANN configurations with multilayer perceptrons and radial-basis functions 20, 22, 24, 25. The inputs for the ANNs were intercept value, midband value, and PSA value, with biopsy results serving as the gold standard for true tissue type.…”

Challenges in Clinical Prostate Cancer: Role of Imaging

“…One particularly promising strategy, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, takes advantage of the difference in the microvasculature between areas of prostate cancer and benign prostate tissue. Ultrasound spectroscopy uses radiofrequency echo signals that are expressed as spectral parameters to characterize tissue microarchitecture to discriminate malignant from benign prostate tissue [10]. …”

“…During a spectrum analysis, a region of interest is drawn surrounding the suspected area, and the spectrum of radiofrequency signals is compared with that from a normal reference area [10]. The utility of ultrasound spectroscopy in detecting prostate cancer has been shown in a clinical trial involving 300 patients conducted by the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; a trial involving 64 patients at the Washington, DC, VA Medical Center; and a group in Germany independently [39].…”

Molecular imaging of vessels in mouse models of disease

“…Microbubbles can be used to image blood perfusion in organs and measure blood flow rate in the heart, in tumors, or other organs46. Targeted ligands that bind to specific receptors expressed on the vascular endothelium can be conjugated to microbubbles, enabling the microbubble complex to accumulate selectively in areas of interest, such as neo-vasculature or diseased/abnormal tissues.…”