Abstract
Vocal folds are an essential part of human voice production. The biomechanical properties are a good indicator for pathological changes. In particular, as an oscillation system, changes in the biomechanical properties have an impact on the vibration behavior. Subsequently, those changes could lead to voice-related disturbances. However, no existing examination combines biomechanical properties and spatial imaging. Therefore, we propose an image registration-based approach, using ultrasound in order to gain this information synchronously. We used a quasi-static load to compress the tissue and measured the displacement by image registration. The strain distribution was directly calculated from the displacement field, whereas the elastic properties were estimated by a finite element model. In order to show the feasibility and reliability of the algorithm, we tested it on gelatin phantoms. Further, by examining ex vivo porcine vocal folds, we were able to show the practicability of the approach. We displayed the strain distribution in the tissue and the elastic properties of the vocal folds. The results were superimposed on the corresponding ultrasound images. The findings are promising and show the feasibility of the suggested approach. Possible applications are in improved diagnosis of voice disorders, by measuring the biomechanical properties of the vocal folds with ultrasound. The transducer will be placed on the vocal folds of the anesthetized patient, and the elastic properties will be measured. Further, the understanding of the vocal folds’ biomechanics and the voice forming process could benefit from it.
Highlights
Our voice is the primary way of interpersonal communication
To obtain greater displacements in the registration process, every hundredth frame was used. We solved this by using OpenQSEI, which is an open source finite element model (FEM) solver of elastic problems based on MATLAB [48]
The goal of this work was to show a new approach to measure the elastic properties of the vocal folds (VFs)
Summary
Our voice is the primary way of interpersonal communication. for professional speakers or singers, many everyday routines rely on a functioning voice and sound production. The biomechanical properties of the VFs play a crucial role in the whole phonation process [2]. (e.g., traction testing, rheometry, indentation testing), optical approaches [6] (e.g., videostroboscopy, videoendoscopy), and medical imaging techniques [7] (e.g., synchrotron X-ray microtomography [8], optical coherence tomography (OCT) [9], ultrasound (US)) are used to examine the biomechanics of the VFs. US is already being used to examine the vocal folds, like B-mode- [10], Doppler- [11], Nakagami-imaging [12], and elastography [13,14,15]. Elastography is an examination method where the biomechanical properties are displayed on medical images. We could depict strain images and estimations of the elastic properties These findings could show a new promising approach to examine the VFs, in order to reach a better understanding of the voice forming process and open up new diagnostic methods
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