EAGER: Development of an Advanced Haptic Display for Medical Imaging

这个EAGER项目将创建一个创新系统，允许医疗专业人员使用他们的触觉来探索从超声成像扫描中获得的数据。医生在体检时通常依靠触诊，用手和手指探查器官或身体部位的大小、位置和机械反应。精密成像系统产生的高分辨率三维图像是现代医学的基本工具；这个项目的结果将使诊断医生能够交互式地触摸、感觉和操纵这些图像中的物体。该项目需要将最近开发的超声成像方法与类似手套的接口集成在一起，该接口将使用气动执行器来精确模拟成像组织的机械响应。该项目将通过早期和准确检测癌性肿瘤，以及减少不必要的侵入性活组织检查，造福公众健康。异常生长的机械特性可能是确定其是否癌变的重要因素。结合与体积模量相关的声速测量和与剪切模量相关的弹性学，可以估计成像区域中每个点的局部弹性张量。这个项目将为手和手指创造一个气动驱动的触觉设备，它使用这些数据来准确地模拟物理触诊的感觉。这种数据显示模式模拟了身体检查的过程，因此自然地利用了基本的医学训练，而不需要新的、反直觉的技能来解释人工可视化。该项目将确定将这种触觉反馈添加到现有的诊断扫描中是否会导致更好的诊断结果。EAGER项目将包括对该设备的能力进行广泛的评估，以传达软组织机械特性中细微的和诊断相关的差异。

This EAGER project will create an innovative system to allow medical professionals to use their sense of touch to explore data obtained from ultrasound imaging scans. Physicians routinely rely on palpation during physical examination, exploring the size, location, and mechanical response of organs or body parts with their hands and fingers. The high-resolution, three-dimensional images produced by sophisticated imaging systems are essential tools in modern medicine; the results of this project will enable diagnosticians to interactively touch, feel, and manipulate objects in these images. The project entails the integration of a recently developed ultrasonic imaging methods with a glove-like interface that will use pneumatic actuators to accurately simulate the mechanical response of the imaged tissue. The project will benefit public health through early and accurate detection of cancerous tumors, and reduction of unnecessary, invasive biopsies.The mechanical properties of an abnormal growth may be important in determining whether it is cancerous. Combining speed-of-sound measurement, which correlates to bulk modulus, and elastography, which correlates to shear modulus, allows estimation of the local elasticity tensor at each point in the imaged region. This project will create a pneumatically actuated haptic device for the hands and fingers, that uses this data to accurately simulate the feel of physical palpation. This mode of data display emulates the process of physical examination, and is thereby naturally leverages basic medical training, rather than requiring new, counter-intuitive, skills to interpret an artificial visualization. The project will establish whether adding this haptic feedback to existing diagnostic scans will lead to better diagnostic outcomes. The EAGER project will include extensive evaluation of the ability of the device to convey subtle and diagnostically relevant differences in the mechanical properties of soft tissue.