The aim of this study was to determine the interest in and relevance of the use of infrared thermography, which is a non-invasive full-field surface temperature measurement technique, to characterize the heterogeneous heating caused by ultrasound in biological tissue. Thermal effects of shear wave elastography, pulse Doppler and B-mode were evidenced in porcine tissue. Experiments were performed using a high-frequency echography Aixplorer system (Supersonic Imagine, Aix-en-Provence, France). For all three modes, ultrasound was applied continuously for 360 s while the temperature at the sample surface was recorded with a Cedip Jade III-MWIR infrared camera (Flir, Torcy, France). Temperature changes were detected for the three modes. In particular, "heat tunnels" crossing the sample were visualized from the early stages of the experiment. Heat conduction from the transducer was also involved in the global warming of the sample. The study widens the prospects for studies on tolerability, potentially in addition to classic approaches such as those using thermocouples.
Keywords: Infrared thermography; Shear wave elastography; Temperature rise; Tolerability; Ultrasound.
Copyright © 2019 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.