title: A computer simulation study of soft tissue characterization using low-frequency ultrasonic tomography.
abstract: We investigate the potential of using ultrasonic diffraction tomography technique for characterization of biological tissues. Unlike most of other studies where ultrasonic tomography operates at frequencies higher than 1 MHz, low-frequency tomography uses lower frequencies on the order of 0.3-0.5 MHz. Such a choice is due to low attenuation at these frequencies, resulting in higher precision of input data. In this paper we explore transmission and reflection schemes for both 2D (layer-by-layer) and 3D tomography. We treat inverse tomography problems as coefficient inverse problems for the wave equation. The time-domain algorithms employed for solving the inverse problem of low-frequency tomography focus on the use of GPU clusters. The results obtained show that a spatial resolution of about 2-3mm can be achieved when operating at the wavelength of about 5mm even using a stationary 3D scheme with a few fixed sources and no rotating elements. The study primarily focuses on determining the performance limits of ultrasonic tomography devices currently designed for breast cancer diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobyevy Gory 1, Build. 4, Moscow 119991, Russia. Electronic address: gonchar@srcc.msu.ru.
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Goncharsky
authors.affiliation: Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobyevy Gory 1, Build. 4, Moscow 119991, Russia. Electronic address: romanov60@gmail.com.
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Romanov
authors.affiliation: Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobyevy Gory 1, Build. 4, Moscow 119991, Russia. Electronic address: s2110sj@gmail.com.
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Seryozhnikov
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D012983:Soft Tissue Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014056:Tomography, X-Ray; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods*
keywords: 3D coefficient inverse problems; GPU clusters; Reflection and transmission tomography; Ultrasonic tomography; Wave equation