A novel composite material specifically developed for ultrasound bone phantoms: cortical, trabecular and skull

Abstract

In the various stages of developing diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, the use of phantoms can play a very important role in improving the process, help in implementation, testing and calibrations. Phantoms are especially useful in developing new applications and training new doctors in medical schools. However, devices that use different physical factors, such as MRI, Ultrasound, CT Scan, etc will require the phantom to be made of different physical properties. In this paper we introduce the properties of recently designed new materials for developing phantoms for ultrasonic human body investigation, which in today's market make up more than 30% in the world of phantoms. We developed a novel composite material which allows fabrication of various kinds of ultrasound bone phantoms to mimic most of the acoustical properties of human bones. In contrast to the ex vivo tissues, the proposed material can maintain the physical and acoustical properties unchanged for long periods of time; moreover, these properties can be custom designed and created to suit specific needs. As a result, we introduce three examples of ultrasound phantoms that we manufactured in our laboratory: cortical, trabecular and skull bone phantoms. The paper also presents the results of a comparison study between the acoustical and physical properties of actual human bones (reported in the referenced literatures) and the phantoms manufactured by us.

Non-Invasive Treatment of Pediatric Neurological Disorders using MR-guided Focused Ultrasound - Part 1 Pediatric Skull Characterization and Re-Focusing

“…Based on the CT scan of the real skull, this phantom was manufactured using bone-mimicking material, [1] which was developed based on adult bone samples. The structure of this 8-year old skull is different than the one of an adult skull.…”

“…Two cadaveric pediatric skulls have been obtained: A neonate skull with an open fontanelle and an 8year old skull ( Figure 1). Two phantom skulls, made from a bone-mimicking ceramic, representing the 8year old skull and the neonate skull have also been manufactured by the group of Dr. Roman Maev from the University of Windsor [1].…”

Head phantoms for transcranial focused ultrasound

“…of recent developments in composite material design, Wydra and Maev mimicked most of the acoustical properties of human bones. 30 The human skulls used in this study could thus be replaced by composite material in the future. An alternative to the commercially available hydrogel (ATS Laboratories, Bridgeport CT) used in this study has also been proposed by Maruvada et al 31 The corresponding recipe can be found in King et al 32 The phantoms could be used to investigate various novel developments for tcMRgFUS ranging from checking skin heating, to developing new MR thermal mapping sequences in order to perform faster imaging or larger field of view.…”

Semi-analytical finite-element modeling approach for guided wave assessment of mechanical degradation in bones

“…Experimental studies were performed on bone phantoms to validate the SAFE approach. Phantoms of cortical bone were acquired from the Institute for Diagnostic Imaging Research, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada (see Wydra & Maev 2013 ). The dimensions were chosen to be similar to the middle section of a typical cortical bone like the radius.…”

“…The dimensions were chosen to be similar to the middle section of a typical cortical bone like the radius. The phantoms were made of a specially designed composite material using epoxy resin and alumina powder (Wydra & Maev 2013 ) which closely mimics the cortical bone with properties as shown in Table 2 . The phantoms were 150-mm long filled with a polyurethane material which matches the acoustical properties of bone marrow (Bulk modulus 2.2 GPa, viscosity of 37cP and a density of 1000 kg/m 3 ) (Gurkan & Akkus 2008 ).…”