Body surface scanner for the abdominal sound speed tomographic imaging

The ultrasound tomography has been studied for the reconstruction of the abdominal sound speed image to measure the visceral fat area. The method is based on the travel time observations of the sound waves transmitted through the abdominal medium. In the present study, aiming to realize the method as a clinically available equipment, body surface scanner machinery was developed keeping good contact between a transducer and a human abdominal body surface. To-and-fro movement scanning equipment including the attachment of the elastic coupling gel hemisphere in front of the transducer surface was installed. The optimum pushing status was controlled by monitoring the variation of the received sound wave amplitude. They were in stable over the wide pushing distance region, regardless of the contact surface angle. It was shown that measured precision of the travel time were good enough to discriminate the difference of the sound speed between the fat and protein regions in the human abdominal region.