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Hydrogel based tissue mimicking phantom for in‐vitro ultrasound contrast agents studies
Author(s) -
Demitri Christian,
Sannino Alessandro,
Conversano Francesco,
Casciaro Sergio,
Distante Alessandro,
Maffezzoli Alfonso
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of biomedical materials research part b: applied biomaterials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1552-4981
pISSN - 1552-4973
DOI - 10.1002/jbm.b.31108
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , biomedical engineering , materials science , self healing hydrogels , attenuation , ultrasound , vascular tissue , nuclear medicine , medicine , radiology , optics , physics , botany , biology , polymer chemistry
Ultrasound medical imaging (UMI) is the most widely used image analysis technique, and often requires advanced in‐vitro set up to perform morphological and functional investigations. These studies are based on contrast properties both related to tissue structure and injectable contrast agents (CA). In this work, we present a three‐dimensional structure composed of two different hydrogels reassembly the microvascular network of a human tissue. This phantom was particularly suitable for the echocontrastographic measurements in human microvascular system. This phantom has been characterized to present the acoustic properties of an animal liver, that is, acoustic impedance ( Z ) and attenuation coefficient (AC), in UMI signal analysis in particular; the two different hydrogels have been selected to simulate the target organ and the acoustic properties of the vascular system. The two hydrogels were prepared starting from cellulose derivatives to simulating the target organ parenchyma and using a PEG‐diacrylate to reproduce the vascular system. Moreover, harmonic analysis was performed on the hydrogel mimicking the liver parenchyma hydrogel to evaluate the ultrasound (US) distortion during echographic measurement. The phantom was employed in the characterization of an experimental US CA. Perfect agreement was found when comparing the hydrogel acoustical properties materials with the corresponding living reference tissues (i.e., vascular and parenchimal tissue). © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 2008