Temperature Rise Caused by Shear Wave Elastography, Pulse Doppler and B-Mode in Biological Tissue: An Infrared Thermographic Approach

The aim of the study is to demonstrate the interest and relevance 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 (SWE), Pulse-Doppler (PD) 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 the three modes, ultrasound was applied continuously for 360 seconds while the temperature was recorded at the sample surface 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 opens up prospects for safety studies, potentially in addition to classical approaches such as those using thermocouples