Analysis of 3D Subharmonic Ultrasound Signals from Patients with Known Breast Masses for Lesion Differentiation.

摘要

The purpose of this award is to help the principle investigator (PI) transition into a long term career in breast cancer imaging research through both training and independent research. While the focus of this project has shifted more towards the independent research, the clinical training component continues to include the observation of an NIH funded, multi-center breast imaging trial (data from which will be used in the research portion of this grant), time spent with radiologists specializing in breast imaging, and attendance at clinical research and case conferences. The research portion of this project is to develop computer-based analysis software that will extract physical parameters from a new method of ultrasound imaging (subharmonic imaging) to improve breast lesion characterization. These algorithms have also been applied to an existing contrast enhanced ultrasound dataset from murine xenografts to determine their relationship with immunohistochemical angiogenic marker expression (which may be useful as a potential tool for monitoring treatment response). Currently, mammography leads to an unacceptably high rate of false positive findings. Thus, the ultimate goal of this research is to develop subharmonic ultrasound image (SHI) processing algorithms to improve the classification of breast lesions.