Design and Testing of a Single-Element Ultrasound Viscoelastography System for Point-of-Care Edema Quantification.

Management of fluid overload in patients with end-stage renal disease represents a unique challenge to clinical practice because of the lack of accurate and objective measurement methods. Currently, peripheral edema is subjectively assessed by palpation of the patient's extremities, ostensibly a qualitative indication of tissue viscoelastic properties. New robust quantitative estimates of tissue fluid content would allow clinicians to better guide treatment, minimizing reactive treatment decision making.

Ultrasonic sound velocity measurement in samples of soft materials through under-resonance excitation.

Ultrasound (US) velocity determination is a valuable characterization technique, providing important information on elastic properties of materials. Sound velocity can be obtained accurately in the pulsed method if the thickness of the specimen is precisely known. This is clearly not easily achievable for soft materials, such as biologic soft tissues or tissue-mimicking phantoms.

Sound velocity determination in gel-based emulsions.

Sound velocity is a main parameter in non destructive characterization, closely related to the elastic properties and to the microstructure of heterogeneous materials. The accurate determination of the sound velocity using pulse-echo technique relies on the ability to reduce pulse distortion and to measure specimen dimensions with a high precision. In the field of bio-mimetic materials and biological tissues, the nature of the specimen makes this last requirement highly difficult or inappropriate.