More Effective Ultrasound Using Naval Sonar Tech

Makarand writes "With obesity levels skyrocketing in the west it is becoming necessary to find more reliable ways of effectively scanning obese patients using ultrasound especially when the organ of interest in under layers of fat resulting in poor ultrasound images. Latest advances in ultrasound are increasing the accuracy of the imaging systems by using image enhancement methods borrowed from the Navy's sonar equipment according to this BBC News article. The Navy's sonar techniques effectively double the resolution in ultrasound systems. The technology could be in hospitals within a year."

Comments

Dangerous occupation

[fishdan]

Who wants to tell the 450lbs woman that you are going to scan her with the sonar that a Navy ship occasionally uses to detects whales?

Re:Dangerous occupation

[Simon Field]

It was mine detection, actually, but the joke was great anyway.

There are two parts to the new trick. One is to change the signal the device sends out to a broadband pulse, but the main part is the software to tease the extra information out of the echo.

I'm picturing some British slashdotter coding away frantically while scarfing down typical programmer food, wondering if his new invention will help him in time.

There is a bit more information on this horribly laid-out page. I haven't found the patent application yet, maybe someone with better access to British patents can help out here. Also nothing scholarly on the web that I can find. Who did the work?

Thar she blows!

[ObviousGuy]

It's funny how a technology based on whales' object location techniques has come full circle.

Sonar's picking up--my God, what is that thing?

[Vishniac]

Just imagining someone so obese that they can only have an effective ultrasound done by a Navy submarine is enough to make me squirt milk out my nose.

Re:I'm really anxious for...

[lirkbald]

They've been doing that for a while. Seismic exploration is a very common technique for oil drilling and the like. You induce vibrations using explosives or something like a pile driver, and listen to the echoes.

Also I think there have been studies done on the vibratory modes of the sun. Not quite the same thing, but related. Found a new word while googling about it- Helioseismology. Gonna have to remember that one :-)

Re:America, Land of the Fat

[Simon Field]

Clever use of your new vocabulary, but the work was done in the U.K., by a U.K. company, for the U.K. National Health System.

20% of men there, and 25% of women there are clinically obese. 60% of men are overweight, and 40% of women.

In the U.S., obesity ranges from 13.8% in Colorado to 24.3% in Mississippi, with averages less than 20%.

As to the aspersions cast upon cows, the obesity rates amoung bovines are below 2%. We're getting less like cows all the time, which is too bad for our health.

helioseismology

[barakn]

Helioseismology has matured to the point that it can be used to image the far side of the sun", which is impressive, considering the sun is 1.4 million kilometers in diameter. SOHO strikes again.

Re:Easy one this!

[Simon Field]

There are 560 calories in a Big Mac.

There are 310 calories in McDonalds' large Coke.

When 35% of the calories in a meal are removed, it can make quite a difference. A person could eat 3 Big Macs a day and still be under the recommended 2,000 calories. But add the Coke, and you are 610 calories over your limit.

If you throw away the bun, the Big Mac would probably fit in an Atkins diet plan, and maybe even taste better.

Maybe...

[Cyno01]

Doctors should just encourage people to lose some weight.

A little background...

[tastiles]

As a grad student studying the physics of ultrasound, I wish there were more details. It sounds like this company has announced some image processing technique that improves both navy sonar and medical ultrasound. Here's a little background about how ultrasound quality decreases with depth.

There are (at least) two issues when it comes to seeing through layers of fat: attenuation and beam spreading. Both of these are fundamental to the physics of ultrasound.

Attenuation refers to the decrease in amplitude in the ultrasound wave as it passes through a medium. The effect is exponential with depth, so that if at some point the amplitude is 10, at some later point it is 10 e^(-a d), where d is the distance between the two points and a is the attenuation coefficient (a property of the medium). This limits how far ultrasound can penetrate in tissue since the signal can quickly get to be about the same magnitude as electronic noise.

The other problem is beam spreading. You need a narrow "beam" of ultrasound to be able to know where an object is the field of view. The width of the beam is related to how well you know the size of the object. Just like with a flashlight, the further you are from the source, the wider the "beam". With a wider beam, you know the size of an object with less precision, hence you have less image resolution.

Both of these are problems that could be reduced with image processing. But the company's web site is down and there are few details in the article.

Hold still while we apply the submarine

[K-Man]

This article doesn't say much of anything, but I've found some interesting sonar stuff on my own before.

One technique that is, IMHO, underappreciated, is phase-conjugate sonar. When a reflected signal is received by a network of sensors, it is played back in reverse from all the sensor locations. The time reversal causes the wavefronts from all the emitters to arrive back at the target simultaneously, creating an even stronger reflection, and probably making the target's ears ring.

I've been thinking of using this technique for a subwoofer blaster, but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe medical science should be given priority.