Noninvasive thermometry assisted by a dual-function ultrasound transducer for mild hyperthermia

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2010 Dec;57(12):2671-84. doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2010.1741.

Abstract

Mild hyperthermia is increasingly important for the activation of temperature-sensitive drug delivery vehicles. Noninvasive ultrasound thermometry based on a 2-D speckle tracking algorithm was examined in this study. Here, a commercial ultrasound scanner, a customized co-linear array transducer, and a controlling PC system were used to generate mild hyperthermia. Because the co-linear array transducer is capable of both therapy and imaging at widely separated frequencies, RF image frames were acquired during therapeutic insonation and then exported for off-line analysis. For in vivo studies in a mouse model, before temperature estimation, motion correction was applied between a reference RF frame and subsequent RF frames. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments were examined; in the in vitro and in vivo studies, the average temperature error had a standard deviation of 0.7°C and 0.8°C, respectively. The application of motion correction improved the accuracy of temperature estimation, where the error range was 1.9 to 4.5°C without correction compared with 1.1 to 1.0°C following correction. This study demonstrates the feasibility of combining therapy and monitoring using a commercial system. In the future, real-time temperature estimation will be incorporated into this system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Breast Neoplasms / diagnostic imaging
  • Breast Neoplasms / therapy
  • Female
  • Hyperthermia, Induced / methods*
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods
  • Mice
  • Neoplasm Transplantation
  • Phantoms, Imaging
  • Sepharose
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted*
  • Temperature
  • Thermography / instrumentation
  • Thermography / methods*
  • Transducers
  • Ultrasonography / instrumentation
  • Ultrasonography / methods*

Substances

  • Sepharose