title: Radio Frequency Ultrasound Time Series Signal Analysis to Evaluate High-intensity Focused Ultrasound Lesion Formation Status in Tissue.
abstract: High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a novel treatment modality used by scientists and clinicians in the recent decades. This modality has had a great and significant success as a noninvasive surgery technique applicable in tissue ablation therapy and cancer treatment. In this study, radio frequency (RF) ultrasound signals were acquired and registered in three stages of before, during, and after HIFU exposures. Different features of RF time series signals including the sum of amplitude spectrum in the four quarters of the frequency range, the slope, and intercept of the best-fit line to the entire power spectrum and the Shannon entropy were utilized to distinguish between the HIFU-induced thermal lesion and the normal tissue. We also examined the RF data, frame by frame to identify exposure effects on the formation and characteristics of a HIFU thermal lesion at different time steps throughout the treatment. The results obtained showed that the spectrum frequency quarters and the slope and intercept of the best fit line to the entire power spectrum both increased two times during the HIFU exposures. The Shannon entropy, however, decreased after the exposures. In conclusion, different characteristics of RF time series signal possess promising features that can be used to characterize ablated and nonablated tissues and to distinguish them from each other in a quasi-quantitative fashion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Saeedeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mobasheri
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Behnam
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Parisa
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rangraz
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Jahan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tavakkoli
keywords: High intensity focused ultrasound; Shannon entropy; radio frequency signal; time series; tissue characterization; ultrasound