Attenuation Estimation and Acoustic Characterization of Mouse Lymph Node Tumor Using High-frequency Ultrasound.

IF 2.5 4区医学 Q2 RADIOLOGY, NUCLEAR MEDICINE & MEDICAL IMAGING

Molecular Imaging and Biology Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2025-05-12 DOI:10.1007/s11307-025-02007-2

Masaaki Omura, Kazuki Maeda, Kazuki Tamura, Kenji Yoshida, Ariunbuyan Sukhbaatar, Tetsuya Kodama, Tadashi Yamaguchi

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Purpose: Lymph node (LN) biopsy is the gold standard for diagnosing metastasis. While ultrasound imaging is a non-invasive method for real-time LN metastasis diagnosis and tumor assessment, its accuracy depends on operator skill and system settings. Quantitative ultrasound can characterize tissue microstructure changes due to tumors, offering operator-independent parameters, and one of the quantitative ultrasound methods, the backscatter coefficient, is necessary to compensate for tissue attenuation. However, the change in the attenuation coefficient (AC) in the tumor growth is uncertain. Using in vivo high-frequency ultrasound (25 MHz) measurement and scanning acoustic microscopy (80 and 300 MHz) for ex vivo samples, we aim to investigate how tumor growth is linked to the attenuation and acoustic properties such as acoustic impedance and speed of sound related to ultrasonic wave propagation.

Procedures: FM3 A-Luc mammary carcinoma cells were inoculated into the subiliac LNs of mice, and tumor progression was monitored over time. Bioluminescence imaging was used to assess tumor growth, while ultrasound measurements focused on estimating AC and other acoustic properties.

Results: Results indicated that the mean of AC decreased, and its standard deviation increased as tumors grew, correlating with bioluminescence intensity. Furthermore, acoustic impedance and speed of sound varied between normal and tumor tissues, revealing differences in tissue microstructure from the histopathological images.

Conclusions: The finding of a decrease in AC observed with tumor growth may play a crucial role in enhancing the accuracy of quantitative ultrasound on attenuation compensation, potentially improving the differentiation between metastatic and non-metastatic LNs.

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高频超声对小鼠淋巴结肿瘤的衰减估计及声学表征。

目的：淋巴结活检是诊断转移的金标准。虽然超声成像是实时诊断和评估淋巴结转移的一种非侵入性方法，但其准确性取决于操作人员的技能和系统设置。定量超声可以表征肿瘤引起的组织微观结构变化，提供不依赖于操作人员的参数，而定量超声方法之一的后向散射系数是补偿组织衰减所必需的。然而，肿瘤生长过程中衰减系数（AC）的变化是不确定的。使用体内高频超声（25 MHz）测量和扫描声学显微镜（80和300 MHz）对离体样本进行测量，我们旨在研究肿瘤生长如何与衰减和声学特性（如声阻抗和与超声波传播相关的声速）相关。方法：将FM3 A-Luc乳腺癌细胞接种于小鼠的髂下淋巴结，并随时间监测肿瘤进展。生物发光成像用于评估肿瘤生长，而超声测量侧重于估计AC和其他声学特性。结果：随着肿瘤的生长，AC的平均值降低，标准差增大，与生物发光强度相关。此外，正常组织和肿瘤组织的声阻抗和声速不同，从组织病理图像中揭示了组织微观结构的差异。结论：肿瘤生长过程中AC的减少可能对提高定量超声对衰减补偿的准确性起关键作用，可能有助于提高转移性和非转移性LNs的鉴别。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Molecular Imaging and Biology 医学-核医学

CiteScore

6.90

自引率

3.20%

发文量

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Molecular Imaging and Biology (MIB) invites original contributions (research articles, review articles, commentaries, etc.) on the utilization of molecular imaging (i.e., nuclear imaging, optical imaging, autoradiography and pathology, MRI, MPI, ultrasound imaging, radiomics/genomics etc.) to investigate questions related to biology and health. The objective of MIB is to provide a forum to the discovery of molecular mechanisms of disease through the use of imaging techniques. We aim to investigate the biological nature of disease in patients and establish new molecular imaging diagnostic and therapy procedures. Some areas that are covered are: Preclinical and clinical imaging of macromolecular targets (e.g., genes, receptors, enzymes) involved in significant biological processes. The design, characterization, and study of new molecular imaging probes and contrast agents for the functional interrogation of macromolecular targets. Development and evaluation of imaging systems including instrumentation, image reconstruction algorithms, image analysis, and display. Development of molecular assay approaches leading to quantification of the biological information obtained in molecular imaging. Study of in vivo animal models of disease for the development of new molecular diagnostics and therapeutics. Extension of in vitro and in vivo discoveries using disease models, into well designed clinical research investigations. Clinical molecular imaging involving clinical investigations, clinical trials and medical management or cost-effectiveness studies.