Development of ultrasound-based integrated techniques for biomechanical and bioacoustical characterization of tissue

开发基于超声的组织生物力学和生物声学表征集成技术

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-06472
• 负责人: SadeghiNaini, Ali
• 金额: $ 1.97万
• 依托单位: York University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=760736
• 关键词: Development; ultrasound; based; integrated; techniques

Breast and prostate cancers are the most frequent form of cancers diagnosed in women and men, respectively. Early diagnosis and prognosis are crucial for these cancer patients; with early diagnosis more therapeutics options can be considered whereas with early prognosis effective therapy adjustments can be facilitated for the patients on an individual basis. Tumour formation and its degeneration in response to treatment frequently alter tissue composition and microstructures, and consequently its biomechanical and bioacoustical characteristics. Therefore novel imaging technologies that permit volumetric and simultaneous quantification of tissue biomechanical and bioacoustical properties within the whole breast/prostate can potentially facilitate early diagnosis and prognosis for cancer patients with a high sensitivity.The overarching goal of this research program is to develop novel techniques within an integrated ultrasound-based framework to characterize biomechanical and bioacoustical properties of tissue in breast and prostate non-invasively. Specifically, our short-term objective is to design, develop and evaluate novel techniques for 3D ultrasound elastography and quantitative ultrasound imaging of whole breast/prostate to derive measures of tissue biomechanical and bioacoustical properties concurrently. Utilizing ultrasound as the imaging modality to collect raw data, our proposed framework has the advantage of being non-invasive, inexpensive and portable, in addition to having rapid imaging speed with high spatial resolution. The techniques developed in this program will be evaluated using computer simulations, followed by comprehensive studies on several tissue-mimicking phantoms with different characteristics designed specifically for breast or prostate.Over the long-term, we aim to ultrasonically characterize various normal and abnormal tissue types including healthy and cancerous tissues at different stages of disease, and at different stages of response development to anti-cancer therapies. A simultaneous characterization of different tissue properties enables us to investigate tumour formation and degeneration process from various points of view at cellular and tissue levels. Such a multi-view investigation can provide better insight into the different biophysical mechanisms involved in both tumour formation and degeneration, and the possible mutual impacts of such mechanisms on each other. We expect the complementary information provided by an integrated quantification of different tissue characteristics will increase the sensitivity, specificity and robustness in cancer diagnosis and prognosis applications. The proposed framework, therefore, can eventually facilitate breast and prostate cancer detection at early stages and permit therapy response evaluation rapidly after the start of a treatment.

乳腺癌和前列腺癌分别是女性和男性最常见的癌症。早期诊断和预后对这些癌症患者至关重要;早期诊断可以考虑更多的治疗选择，而早期预后可以促进患者个体化的有效治疗调整。肿瘤的形成及其对治疗的反应经常改变组织成分和微观结构，从而改变其生物力学和生物声学特性。因此，新的成像技术，允许体积和同时定量的组织生物力学和生物声学特性在整个乳房/前列腺可以潜在地促进早期诊断和预后的癌症患者具有高灵敏度。基于框架的非侵入性表征乳腺和前列腺组织的生物力学和生物声学特性。具体来说，我们的短期目标是设计、开发和评估用于整个乳房/前列腺的3D超声弹性成像和定量超声成像的新技术，以同时获得组织生物力学和生物声学特性的测量结果。利用超声作为成像方式来收集原始数据，我们提出的框架具有非侵入性，廉价和便携式的优点，除了具有快速的成像速度和高空间分辨率。本项目开发的技术将通过计算机模拟进行评估，然后对专门针对乳腺或前列腺设计的具有不同特征的几种组织模拟体模进行全面研究。长期以来，我们的目标是对各种正常和异常组织类型进行超声表征，包括疾病不同阶段的健康组织和癌组织，以及对抗癌治疗反应发展的不同阶段。不同组织特性的同时表征使我们能够从细胞和组织水平的各个角度研究肿瘤形成和变性过程。这种多视角的研究可以更好地了解肿瘤形成和变性所涉及的不同生物物理机制，以及这些机制彼此之间可能的相互影响。我们期望通过不同组织特征的综合量化提供的互补信息将增加癌症诊断和预后应用中的灵敏度、特异性和鲁棒性。因此，所提出的框架，最终可以促进乳腺癌和前列腺癌的早期检测，并允许治疗开始后迅速评估治疗反应。