Assessing the cortical thickness of long bone shafts in children, using two-dimensional ultrasonic diffraction tomography

Abstract

Echography is one of the first-line techniques used in clinical practice to diagnose osteoarticular diseases in children. However, this technique involves the use of standard equipment, which is not adapted to the morphology or the acoustical properties of children’s bones. In this study, we developed an ultrasonic tomography method for measuring the cortical thickness of children’s long bones. Ultrasonic tomography gives cross-sectional images showing the spatial distribution of some of the physical components of an object, based on scattered ultrasound measurements. These measurements are carried out using variably dense sets of transmitter and receiver positions and various the wave frequencies. We solved this inverse scattering problem using a Born approximation, which yields an attractively simple linear relation between the object function and the scattered field, particularly in the far field. Experiments with a 2D-ring antenna show the applicability of the method and its various improvements to bone thickness imaging. (E-mail: lasaygues@lma.cnrs-mrs.fr)