A new ultrasound technique provides a non-invasive way of assessing bone structure on the microscale. Researchers hope to fine-tune the technique for use in assessing osteoporosis risk and treatment.

Researchers have also demonstrated that a variation of the same technique can distinguish between tumors and healthy tissue in a study using laboratory rats.

«One thing that’s exciting about these techniques is that we’ve taken one of ultrasound’s shortcomings and turned it to our advantage,» says Marie Muller, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of papers on the two studies.

The shortcoming is the fact that ultrasound cannot give us clear images when used in complex media, such as bone. That’s because the ultrasound waves bounce all over the place in these complex environments, making it impossible to calculate how far they’ve traveled.

«In bone, for instance, sound waves will travel through the solid parts of the bone and then scatter whenever they hit a pore,» Muller says. «We found that this is a useful way to assess a bone’s microstructure.»

Muller and her collaborators theorized that by looking at the rate at which ultrasound waves diffused from a bone site, they can assess both the number of pores in a given area — or pore density — and the size of those pores.

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Materials provided by North Carolina State University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.