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Biomedical subjects

Mathias Fink

Publications and source records attributed to Mathias Fink.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Supersonic shear imaging: a new technique for soft tissue elasticity mapping.

Supersonic shear imaging (SSI) is a new ultrasound-based technique for real-time visualization of soft tissue viscoelastic properties. Using ultrasonic focused beams, it is possible to remotely generate mechanical vibration sources radiating low-frequency, shear waves inside tissues. Relying on this concept, SSI proposes to create such a source and make it move at a supersonic speed. In analogy with the "sonic boom" created by a supersonic aircraft, the resulting shear waves will interfere constructively along a Mach cone, creating two intense plane shear waves. These waves propagate through the medium and are progressively distorted by tissue heterogeneities. An ultrafast scanner prototype is able to both generate this supersonic source and image (5000 frames/s) the propagation of the resulting shear waves. Using inversion algorithms, the shear elasticity of medium can be mapped quantitatively from this propagation movie. The SSI enables tissue elasticity mapping in less than 20 ms, even in strongly viscous medium like breast. Modalities such as shear compounding are implementable by tilting shear waves in different directions and improving the elasticity estimation. Results validating SSI in heterogeneous phantoms are presented. The first in vivo investigations made on healthy volunteers emphasize the potential clinical applicability of SSI for breast cancer detection.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Assessment of elastic parameters of human skin using dynamic elastography.

Sonoelastography and transient elastography are two ultrasound-based techniques that facilitate noninvasive characterization of the viscoelastic properties of soft tissues by investigating their response to shear mechanical excitation. Young's modulus is the principle assessment parameter. Because it defines local tissue stiffness, it is of major interest for the medical imaging and cosmetic industries as it could replace subjective palpation by yielding local, quantitative information. In this paper, we describe a new high-resolution device capable of measuring local Young's modulus in very thin layers (1-5 mm) and devoted to the in vivo evaluation of the elastic properties of human skin. It uses an ultrasonic probe (50 MHz) for tracking the displacements induced by a 300 Hz shear wave generated by a ring surrounding the transducer. The displacements are measured using a conventional cross-correlation technique between successive ultrasonic back-scattered echoes. First, this noninvasive technique has been experimentally proven to be accurate for investigating elasticity in different skin-mimicking phantoms. Second, data were acquired in vivo on human forearms. As expected, Young's modulus was found to be higher in the dermis than in the hypodermis and other soft tissues.

Elasticity↗
PubMed2004

The role of the coupling term in transient elastography.

The transient radiation of low-frequency elastic waves through isotropic and homogeneous soft media is investigated using the Green's function approach. A careful analysis of the coupling term is performed and yields the introduction of a very near field region in which its amplitude behaves as 1/r. To address the calculation of impulse responses, a simplified Green's function is proposed for semi-infinite media and compared to exact solutions. Impulse response calculations are successfully compared with experimental measurements obtained for circular radiators of different diameters using transient elastography. Results presented in this paper provide a better understanding of the role of the coupling term in elastography and should be used to compensate diffraction and coupling effects observed in transient elastography.

Elastic Tissue↗
PubMed2004

Real time inverse filter focusing through iterative time reversal.

In order to achieve an optimal focusing through heterogeneous media we need to build the inverse filter of the propagation operator. Time reversal is an easy and robust way to achieve such an inverse filter in nondissipative media. However, as soon as losses appear in the medium, time reversal is not equivalent to the inverse filter anymore. Consequently, it does not produce the optimal focusing and beam degradations may appear. In such cases, we showed in previous works that the optimal focusing can be recovered by using the so-called spatiotemporal inverse filter technique. This process requires the presence of a complete set of receivers inside the medium. It allows one to reach the optimal focusing even in extreme situations such as ultrasonic focusing through human skull or audible sound focusing in strongly reverberant rooms. But, this technique is time consuming and implied fastidious numerical calculations. In this paper we propose a new way to process this inverse filter focusing technique in real time and without any calculation. The new process is based on iterative time reversal process. Contrary to the classical inverse filter technique, this iteration does not require any computation and achieves the inverse filter in an experimental way using wave propagation instead of computational power. The convergence from time reversal to inverse filter during the iterative process is theoretically explained. Finally, the feasibility of this iterative technique is experimentally demonstrated for ultrasound applications.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Revisiting iterative time reversal processing: application to detection of multiple targets.

The iterative time reversal processing represents a high speed and easy way to self-focus on the strongest scatterer in a multitarget medium. However, finding weaker scatterers is a more difficult task that can be solved by computing the eigenvalue and eigenvector decomposition of the time reversal operator, the so-called DORT method. Nevertheless, as it requires the measurement of the complete interelements response matrix and time-consuming computation, the separation of multiple targets may not be achieved in real time. In this study, a new real time technique is proposed for multitarget selective focusing that does not require the experimental acquisition of the time reversal operator. This technique achieves the operator decomposition using a particular sequence of filtered waves propagation instead of computational power. Due to its simplicity of implementation, this iterative process can be achieved in real time. This high speed selective focusing is experimentally demonstrated by detecting targets through a heterogeneous medium and in a speckle environment. A theoretical analysis compares this technique to the DORT formalism.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Temperature estimation using ultrasonic spatial compound imaging.

The feasibility of temperature estimation during high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy using pulse-echo diagnostic ultrasound data has been demonstrated. This method is based upon the measurement of thermally-induced modifications in backscattered RF echoes due to thermal expansion and local changes in the speed of sound. It has been shown that strong ripple artifacts due to the thermo-acoustic lens effect severely corrupt the temperature estimates behind the heated region. We propose here a new imaging technique that improves the temperature estimation behind the heated region and reduces the variance of the temperature estimates in the entire image. We replaced the conventional beamforming on transmit with multiple steered plane wave insonifications using several subapertures. A two-dimensional temperature map is estimated from axial displacement maps between consecutive RF images of identically steered plane wave insonifications. Temperature estimation is then improved by averaging the two-dimensional maps from the multiple steered plane wave insonifications. Experiments were conducted in a tissue-mimicking gelatin-based phantom and in fresh bovine liver.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Field fluctuation spectroscopy in a reverberant cavity with moving scatterers.

We report a study of transient ultrasonic waves inside a reverberant cavity containing moving scatterers. We show that the elastic mean free path and the dynamics of the scatterers govern the evolution of the autocorrelation of acoustic wave field. A parallel is established between these results and a closely related technique, diffusing acoustic wave spectroscopy. Excellent agreement is found between experiment and theory for a moving stainless steel ball in a water tank, thereby elucidating the underlying physics, and a potential application, fish monitoring inside aquariums, is demonstrated.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Taking advantage of multiple scattering to communicate with time-reversal antennas.

We present an experimental demonstration showing that, contrary to first intuition, the more scattering a mesoscopic medium is, the more information can be conveyed through it. We used a multiple input-multiple output configuration: a multichannel ultrasonic time-reversal antenna is used to transmit random series of bits simultaneously to different receivers which were only a few wavelengths apart. Whereas the transmission is free of error when multiple scattering occurs in the propagation medium, the error rate is huge in a homogeneous medium.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Green's function estimation using secondary sources in a shallow water environment.

This work provides a new way to measure the Green's function between two points in an acoustic channel without emitting a pulse by any of the two points. The Green's function between A and B is obtained from a set of secondary sources in the guide by averaging either the correlation or the convolution of the signals received in A and B. A theoretical approach based on mode propagation in a monochromatic regime is presented. Results are then extended to the time domain. Estimation of the Green's function is performed numerically in a range-independent and a range-dependent environment. Application to discreet acoustic communications is discussed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Sound focusing in rooms: the time-reversal approach.

New perspectives in audible range acoustics, such as virtual sound space creation and active noise control, rely on the ability of the rendering system to recreate precisely a desired sound field. This ability to control sound in a given volume of a room is directly linked to the capacity to focus acoustical energy both in space and time. However, sound focusing in rooms remains a complicated problem, essentially because of the multiple reflections on obstacles and walls occurring during propagation. In this paper, the technique of time-reversal focusing, well known in ultrasound, is experimentally applied to audible range acoustics. Compared to classical focusing techniques such as delay law focusing, time reversal appears to considerably improve quality of both temporal and spatial focusing. This so-called super-resolution phenomenon is due to the ability of time reversal to take into account all of the different sound paths between the emitting antenna and the focal point, thus creating an adaptive spatial and temporal matched filter for the considered propagation medium. Experiments emphasize the strong robustness of time-reversal focusing towards small modifications in the medium, such as people in motion or temperature variations. Sound focusing through walls using the time-reversal approach is also experimentally demonstrated.

Acoustics↗
PubMed2003

Resolution enhancement and separation of reverberation from target echo with the time reversal operator decomposition.

Time reversal operator (TRO) decompositions are performed in a model of an ocean wave guide containing a target and having different kinds of bottom. The objective is to study the effects of bottom reverberation and absorption by means of ultrasonic experiments. It is shown experimentally that the echo from a target can be separated from the bottom reverberation. Reverberation eigenvectors are back propagated in the wave guide leading to focus on the bottom. An amplitude correction is applied to both reverberation and signal eigenvectors to compensate for bottom absorption and thus to improve target resolution.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Transient elastography in anisotropic medium: application to the measurement of slow and fast shear wave speeds in muscles.

From the measurement of a low frequency (50-150 Hz) shear wave speed, transient elastography evaluates the Young's modulus in isotropic soft tissues. In this paper, it is shown that a rod source can generate a low frequency polarized shear strain waves. Consequently this technique allows to study anisotropic medium such as muscle. The evidence of the polarization of low frequency shear strain waves is supported by both numeric simulations and experiments. The numeric simulations are based on theoretical Green's functions in isotropic and anisotropic media (hexagonal system). The experiments in vitro led on beef muscle proves the pertinent of this simple anisotropic pattern. Results in vivo on man biceps shows the existence of slow and fast shear waves as predicted by theory.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Sound focusing in rooms. II. The spatio-temporal inverse filter.

The potential of time reversal processing for room acoustics has been extensively investigated in the companion of this paper [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113(3), 1533-1543 (2003)]. In particular, a simple implementation of a loudspeaker time reversal antenna able to take advantage of the multiple reflections in reverberating rooms demonstrates its potential for audible range acoustics while improving focusing both in space and time. However, loss of information (e.g., sound absorption in walls or nonequalized bandwidths of the loudspeakers) during a time reversal experiment degrades the quality of time reversal focusing. In this paper, a more sophisticated technique called spatio-temporal inverse filtering is investigated that achieves time and space deconvolution of the propagation operator between the loudspeakers antenna and a set of microphones embedded inside the insonified volume. Theoretical and experimental comparisons between time reversal and inverse filter focusing are presented. Finally, advantages and limitations of both focusing approaches are highlighted.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Time-reversal acoustics in biomedical engineering.

Time reversal is a very powerful method for focusing through complex and heterogeneous media and shows very promising results in biomedical applications. In this paper, we review some of the main applications investigated during the past decade. An iterative implementation of the time-reversal process allows tracking gallstones in real time during lithotripsy treatments. In this application domain, a smart exploitation of the reverberations in solid waveguides permits the focusing of high-amplitude ultrasonic shock waves with a small number of transducers. Finally, because time reversal is able to correct the strong distortions induced by the skull bone on ultrasonic propagation, this adaptive focusing technique is very promising for ultrasonic hyperthermia brain therapy.

Acoustics↗
PubMed2002

Boosting sonoluminescence with a high-intensity ultrasonic pulse focused on the bubble by an adaptive array.

Single-bubble sonoluminescence is characterized by a great concentration of energy during the collapse of a gas bubble, which leads to the generation of photons from low-frequency ultrasound. The narrow stability domain of sonoluminescence has limited previous attempts to reinforce this inertial confinement in order to generate photons of higher energy or to ignite a nuclear fusion reaction. We present a new experimental approach where an ultrasonic pulse of high frequency is adaptively focused on the bubble during the collapse. Using an array of eight transmitters, a pressure pulse of 0.7 MPa doubles the flash intensity; this technique can easily be extended to higher pressure.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Time reversal versus phase conjugation in a multiple scattering environment.

We present experimental results on the reversibility of ultrasound in a multiple scattering medium. An ultrasonic pulsed wave is transmitted from a point source to a 128-element receiving array through 2D samples with various thickness. The samples consist of random collections of parallel steel rods immersed in water. The scattered waves are recorded, time reversed and sent back into the medium. The time-reversed waves are converging back to their source and the quality of spatial and temporal focusing on the source is related to the second-order moments of the scattered wave (correlation) in time and in space. Experimental results show that it is possible to obtain a robust estimation of the correlations on a single realisation of disorder, taking advantage of the wide frequency bandwidth. The spatial resolution of the system is only limited by the correlation length of the scattered field, and no longer by diffraction. Moreover, successful time-reversal focusing using a single element instead of an array is possible, whereas a one-channel monochromatic phase conjugation fails. The efficiency of broad-band time reversal compared to monochromatic phase conjugation lies in the number of 'information grains' in the frequency bandwidth.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Shear modulus imaging with 2-D transient elastography.

In previous works, we have shown that time-resolved 2-D transient elastography is a promising technique for characterizing the elasticity of soft tissues. It involves the measurement of the displacements induced by the propagation of low frequency (LF) pulsed shear waves in biological tissues. In this paper, we present a novel apparatus that contains a LF vibrating device surrounding a linear array of 128 ultrasonic transducers that performs ultrafast ultrasonic imaging (up to 10,000 frames/s) and that is able to follow in real time the propagation of a LF shear wave in the human body. The vibrating device is made of two rods, fixed to electromagnetic vibrators, that produce in the ultrasonic image area a large amplitude shear wave. The geometry has been chosen both to enhance the sensitivity and to create a quasi linear shear wave front in the imaging plane. An inversion algorithm is used to recover the shear modulus map from the spatio-temporal data, and the first experimental results obtained from tissue-equivalent materials are presented.

Algorithms↗