Ultrasound is widely used as an inexpensive, real-time method for imaging vascular tissue. However, sonographs often lack automatic or semi-automatic software for measuring vascular diameter precisely, especially in low- and mid-income countries or institutions. Tools can be developed to perform this task, but they must be validated before being accepted for clinic use. For that purpose, in this work we present low-cost phantoms that resemble vascular tissue when subjected to ultrasound. Several materials are analysed and a step-by-step recipe for building a simple phantom is presented. Qualitatively, models were imaged by an ultrasound expert physician, and several characteristic are assessed. Quantitatively, a comparison between ultrasound and caliper measurements of the phantoms is presented. Finally, a discussion about the results and the recommended materials for low-cost vascular phantoms is carried out.

Date Published: 26 January 2017
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10160, 12th International Symposium on Medical Information Processing and Analysis, 1016013 (26 January 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2255750

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10160:
12th International Symposium on Medical Information Processing and Analysis
Eduardo Romero; Natasha Lepore; Jorge Brieva; Jorge Brieva; Ignacio Larrabide; , Editor(s)