Development of electronic system for velocity ultrasound measurement: In vitro bone studies

摘要

Ultrasound employed whether in diagnosis or in therapy has shown its great importance in medical domains. Even if ultrasound does not penetrate inside bone to give an image, however, it can reflect its mechanical properties like strength, elasticity and cortical layer thickness. The ultrasonic axial transmission technique over bone tissue is one of the important and efficient method for assessing the status of long bone. This technique involves measurement of velocities using ultrasound probes that are placed on skin along a long bone for in-vivo measurement. However, the method should be developed through the in-vitro measurements from a known materials like calf femur to develop a good understandings between measurements and mechanical properties. The instrumentation system developed in this work is based on a low frequency ultrasonic emitter/ receiver and shows its ability to establish a strong link between the measured ultrasound velocity and the cortical thickness of the calf femur. These promising results can extended to in-vivo measurements for evaluating the status of some bone pathology like osteoporosis.