Temperature elevation in tissue detected in vivo based on statistical analysis of ultrasonic scattered echoes

Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 3;10(1):9030. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-65562-4.

Abstract

It is demanded to monitor temperature in tissue during oncological hyperthermia therapy. In the present study, we non-invasively measured the temperature elevation inside the abdominal cavity and tumour tissue of a living rat induced by capacitive-coupled radiofrequency heating. In the analysis of ultrasound scattered echoes, the Nakagami shape parameter m in each region of interest was estimated at each temperature. The Nakagami shape parameter m has temperature dependence; hence, the temperature increase inside tissue specimens can be detected with the m values. By carrying out in vivo experiments, we visualized the temperature increase inside the abdominal cavity and tumour tissue of living rats using two-dimensional hot-scale images indicating the absolute values of the ratio changes of the m values. In both the abdominal cavity and tumour tissue, the brightness in the hot-scale images clearly increased with increasing temperature. The increases in brightness in the hot-scale images imply the temperature elevations inside the abdominal cavity and tumour tissue of the living rats. The study results prove that the acoustic method we proposed is a promising method for monitoring changes in the internal temperature of the human body under hyperthermia treatment.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Female
  • High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Ablation / methods
  • Hyperthermia, Induced / methods
  • Microscopy, Acoustic / methods*
  • Microwaves
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Phantoms, Imaging
  • Radio Waves
  • Rats
  • Rats, Sprague-Dawley
  • Scattering, Radiation
  • Temperature
  • Thermography / methods*
  • Ultrasonography / methods