Ultrasonic tissue characterization for monitoring nanostructured TiO2-induced bone growth

Layered material characterization using ultrasonic transmission. An inverse estimation methodology

This paper presents an inverse methodology with the aim to characterize a layered material through the identification of acoustical and mechanical properties of its layers. The framework to accomplish this objective is provided by the Inverse Problems (IPs) theory. Material characterization refers to the detection and localization of discontinuities, as well as to the identification of physical properties, in order to predict the material behaviour. In this particular case, the IP is solved in the form of a parameter estimation problem, in which the goal is the estimation of the characteristic acoustic impedance, transit time, and attenuation of each layer. These parameters are directly related to relevant material properties, such as the speed of sound, density, elastic modulus and elastic energy dissipation constants. The IP solution is obtained by minimizing a cost functional formulated as the least squares error between the waveform calculated using an equivalent model, and the measured waveform obtained from ultrasonic transmission tests. The applied methodology allowed the accurate estimation of the desired parameters in materials composed of up to three layers. As a second contribution, a power law frequency dependence of the wave attenuation was identified for several homogeneous materials, based on the same ultrasonic transmission experiments.

Characterization of controlled bone defects using 2D and 3D ultrasound imaging techniques

Ultrasound is emerging as an attractive alternative modality to standard x-ray and CT methods for bone assessment applications. As of today, however, there is a lack of systematic studies that investigate the performance of diagnostic ultrasound techniques in bone imaging applications. This study aims at understanding the performance limitations of new ultrasound techniques for imaging bones in controlled experiments in vitro. Experiments are performed on samples of mammalian and non-mammalian bones with controlled defects with size ranging from 400 microm to 5 mm. Ultrasound findings are statistically compared with those obtained from the same samples using standard x-ray imaging modalities and optical microscopy. The results of this study demonstrate that it is feasible to use diagnostic ultrasound imaging techniques to assess sub-millimeter bone defects in real time and with high accuracy and precision. These results also demonstrate that ultrasound imaging techniques perform comparably better than x-ray imaging and optical imaging methods, in the assessment of a wide range of controlled defects both in mammalian and non-mammalian bones. In the future, ultrasound imaging techniques might provide a cost-effective, real-time, safe and portable diagnostic tool for bone imaging applications.