Toward Standardized Acoustic Radiation Force (ARF)-Based Ultrasound Elasticity Measurements With Robotic Force Control.
Journal:
IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering
Published Date:
Nov 2, 2015
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Acoustic radiation force (ARF)-based approaches to measure tissue elasticity require transmission of a focused high-energy acoustic pulse from a stationary ultrasound probe and ultrasound-based tracking of the resulting tissue displacements to obtain stiffness images or shear wave speed estimates. The method has established benefits in biomedical applications such as tumor detection and tissue fibrosis staging. One limitation, however, is the dependence on applied probe pressure, which is difficult to control manually and prohibits standardization of quantitative measurements. To overcome this limitation, we built a robot prototype that controls probe contact forces for shear wave speed quantification.