Bone guided-wave ultrasonography: How far are we from clinical implementation?

Abstract

Bone guided-wave ultrasonography uses mechanical waves to study the long cortical bones. Long cortex has soft tissues above and marrow below acting like an ultrasound waveguide. The reverberations of the longitudinal and shear waves within the waveguide interfere constructively to generate energetic ultrasonic guided waves (UGW) travelling along the cortex. The UGW can be generated and recorded using an axial transmission technique with the transmitter and receiver deployed axially along the axis of the long bone on the skin’s surface. The UGW thus acquired can be analyzed to provide information relevant to thickness and mechanical properties of the long bone. In this communication, we present an update of our research efforts on bone guided-wave ultrasonography including data acquisition, multichannel signal processing, bone modeling, and implementation of inversion algorithms to recover cortical thickness and mechanical parameters from UGW data. We also present some technical challenges, which will call for the joint effort of the bone ultrasound community to advance the science.Bone guided-wave ultrasonography uses mechanical waves to study the long cortical bones. Long cortex has soft tissues above and marrow below acting like an ultrasound waveguide. The reverberations of the longitudinal and shear waves within the waveguide interfere constructively to generate energetic ultrasonic guided waves (UGW) travelling along the cortex. The UGW can be generated and recorded using an axial transmission technique with the transmitter and receiver deployed axially along the axis of the long bone on the skin’s surface. The UGW thus acquired can be analyzed to provide information relevant to thickness and mechanical properties of the long bone. In this communication, we present an update of our research efforts on bone guided-wave ultrasonography including data acquisition, multichannel signal processing, bone modeling, and implementation of inversion algorithms to recover cortical thickness and mechanical parameters from UGW data. We also present some technical challenges, which will call...