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

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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.