A review of vibro-acoustography and its applications in medicine

In recent years, several new techniques based on the radiation force of ultrasound have been developed. Vibroacoustography is a speckle-free ultrasound based imaging modality that can visualize normal and abnormal soft tissue through mapping the acoustic response of the object to a harmonic radiation force induced by ultrasound. In vibroacoustography, the ultrasound energy is converted from high ultrasound frequencies to a low acoustic frequency (acoustic emission) that is often two orders of magnitude smaller than the ultrasound frequency. The acoustic emission is normally detected by a hydrophone. In medical imaging, vibro-acoustography has been tested on breast, prostate, arteries, liver, and thyroid. These studies have shown that vibro-acoustic data can be used for quantitative evaluation of elastic properties. This paper presents an overview of vibro-acoustography and its applications in the areas of biomedicine.