University of Michigan

Other

General Electric Company

Paul Langford Carson

Dale W Fitting

Xueding Wang

Andrew L Robinson

Fred L Terry, Jr

Jonathan M Rubin

Cynthia Elizabeth Landberg Davis

Ying Mao

J Brian Fowlkes

Wei Zhang

Jian-Feng Chen

Charles Raymond Meyer

Huzefa Neemuchwala

Jeffrey Brian Fowlkes

Oliver Daniel Kripfgans

Alfred Hero

Guan Xu

Ibrahim Oraiqat

Cheri Deng

Aaron Moskalik

Richard M Detsch

Jean Moran

Kyle Cuneo

Issam El Naqa

A method and system for performing online adapted radiotherapy are provided using combined ultrasound and ionizing radiation induced acoustic imaging (iRAI) computed tomography imaging techniques that can be used for measurement of low to ultrahigh dose deliveries (>40 Gy/s). Multiplexed transducers detect US and iRAI signals allowing for anatomical/functional imaging and radiation mapping with absolute dosimetry measurements of a region of interest during a radiotherapy session. Corrections to radiation dosage intensities and locations is determined and provided as feedback to a radiation source to improve the accuracy of applied radiation dosages intra- or inter-radiotherapy treatment sessions preventing the irradiation of healthy tissues and ensuring the accurate delivery of radiation to a tumor or region of interest.

Combined radiation acoustics and ultrasound for radiotherapy guidance and cancer targeting

A method of performing a photoacoustic physio-chemical analysis is provided. The method includes performing one or more photoacoustic scans on a tissue to generate a plurality of photoacoustic signals. The photoacoustic signals are transformed into a frequency domain to form a power spectra. The method also includes generating a two dimensional (2D) physio-chemical spectrogram from the power spectra. A probe for performing a photoacoustic physio-chemical analysis is also provided.

Photoacoustic physio-chemical tissue analysis

An imaging assembly includes a compression system configured to receive and compress an object to be imaged. The compression system includes a first compression paddle and a second compression paddle. The imaging assembly further includes an ultrasound system including a first ultrasound probe coupled to the first compression paddle. The first ultrasound probe is configured to acquire a first portion of the ultrasound image information of the object. The ultrasound system also includes a second ultrasound probe coupled to the second compression paddle. The second ultrasound probe is configured to acquire a second portion of the ultrasound image information of the object.

System and method for breast imaging

A method determines alignment of images in high dimensional feature space. The method comprises registering a source image of a reference modality to a target image of a second modality with an algorithm based upon a measure of information affinity present in both of the source and target image to create a registered image. Next, a plurality of feature vector are extracted from the registered image for each of the source and target images and attributes of the joint distribution of feature vector are captured using an entropic graph spanning the features. Edge lengths are between proximal feature vectors are extracted from the entropic graph and a similarity measure of one of an &#x3b1;-divergence estimate or an &#x3b1;-affinity estimate is constructed based upon these edge lengths to quantify whether the source and target image are sufficiently registered.

Method of determining alignment of images in high dimensional feature space

Method and apparatus for composition and display of three-dimensional

An ultrasonic sensing array having ultrasonic transducer elements formed on a micromachined single-crystal semiconductor wafer provided with a deep recess under each transducer. Etch-altering dopants are diffused into the wafer to form rimmed support structures for dielectric stress-balanced elements. Composite dielectric layers are grown on both surfaces of the wafer. One composite layer serves as a diaphragm underlying the transducer elements. The other composite layer serves as a mask for etching away the substrate under each transducer element to form the deep recess while leaving the support structures and diaphragm layer. The resulting hollow or recess under each transducer element reduces the parasitic capacitance between the transducer and support substrate. The transducer elements are made by forming conductive bottom plates on the dielectric diaphragm layer, adding a piezoelectric polymer layer and thereafter forming the conductive top plates. The resulting ultrasonic sensors are capable of operation over a wide variety of frequencies with improved sensitivity and decreased acoustic crosstalk between sensor elements, Switching transistors may also be fabricated as part of the patterned semiconductor substrate.

Ultrasonic image sensing array with acoustical backing

An ultrasonic sensing array having ultrasonic transducer elements formed on a micromachined single-crystal semiconductor wafer provided with a deep recess under each transducer. Etch-altering dopants are diffused into the water to form rimmed support structures for dielectric stress-balanced elements. Composite dielectric layers are grown on both surfaces of the wafer. One composite layer serves as a diaphragm underlying the transducer elements. The other composite layer serves as a mask for etching away the substrate under each transducer element to form the deep recess while leaving the support structures and diaphragm layer. The resulting hollow or recess under each transducer element reduces the parasitic capacitance between the transducer and support substrate. The transducer elements are made by forming conductive bottom plates on the dielectric diaphragm layer, adding a piezoelectric polymer layer and thereafter forming the conductive top plates. The resulting ultrasonic sensors are capable of operation over a wide variety of frequencies with improved sensitivity and decreased acoustic crosstalk between sensor elements. Switching transistors may also be fabricated as part of the patterned semiconductor substrate.

Ultrasonic image sensing array and method

A system for detecting gas bubbles in a specimen utilizes a transducer which produces pulses, illustratively of ultrasonic acoustic energy, having predetermined frequency characteristics. A first pulse has an increasing frequency with time, and a second pulse has a decreasing frequency with time. Imaging arrangements, which may be formed of ultrasonic transducers, produce images of the region within the specimen after exposure to each such pulse. In one embodiment, a growth transducer array is utilized for dramatically increasing the size of the bubbles, which array is formed of a plurality of transducers which are moved with respect to the specimen and which have respective frequency characteristics over different frequency ranges. Thus, bubble radius is successively increased as each bubble is exposed to the acoustic energy from each such transducer within the growth transducer array. The present invention can be used to reduce the cavitation threshold of bubbles, particularly in the vicinity of tumors, or to increase the temperature in the bubble-containing region.

Variable frequency gas-bubble-manipulating apparatus and method

Growing community of inventors

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

Paul Langford Carson