The Feasibility of Using High Amplitude Pulsed Ultrasound for Combined Hard Tissue and Soft Tissues Imaging

摘要

The limitation of ultrasound imaging is its difficulty in penetrating hard tissue such as bone due to large difference between the acoustic impedance of the bone and soft tissues, and in addition bones have a high attenuation rate. Hence, the outer surface of bony structure can be visualized and not soft tissues or lesions lying behind or within bone. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of high amplitude pulse ultrasound to penetrate the combined hard tissue and soft tissues. Quantitative calculation and experiment setup have been done on the human lower leg which is used as a sample. The result shows that the high amplitude pulse ultrasound is capable to penetrate the human lower leg. After giving 1 MHz of frequency and 200 V of pulse amplitude, signal of amount ～89 mV was detected at the edge of leg while ～50 μs time of flight was required. The result agrees with calculation in modeling (85.16 mV and 56.76 us). This research will be a fundamental basis for future combined hard tissue and soft tissues imaging using high amplitude pulse ultrasound.