EditorialTranslational and Emerging Clinical Applications ofMedical Ultrasound

Yongjin Zhou ,1 Weibao Qiu,2 and Zhihong Huang3

1Shenzhen University, Guangdong, China2Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China3University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

Correspondence should be addressed to Yongjin Zhou; yjzhou@szu.edu.cn

Received 18 April 2018; Accepted 18 April 2018; Published 31 July 2018

Copyright © 2018 Yongjin Zhou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Wide and active usage of medical ultrasound can dateback to the 1960s, yet it is not low-tech or obsolete. Afterdecades of cooperative efforts from clinicians, researchers,and engineers, medical ultrasound is experiencing rapiddevelopments in fields including optical-acoustic imaging,ultrasound elastography, advanced materials/technologiesin ultrasonic transducers, ultrasound neuromodulation,ultrasound-guided interventions, and ultrafast ultrasoundimaging. In this special issue on medical ultrasound, we haveinvited 13 papers that address translational and emergingclinical applications of medical ultrasound.

Specifically speaking, five papers in this special issue aremore of novel engineering techniques in medical ultrasound.The only transducer paper titled “A High Frequency Geo-metric Focusing Transducer Based on 1-3 Piezocompositefor Intravascular Ultrasound Imaging” introduces a highfrequency geometric focusing piezocomposite transducer,which can output high axial and lateral resolution andsubsequently improve the imaging quality. Then two paperstitled “A Modified 2D Multiresolution Hybrid Algorithmfor Ultrasound Strain Imaging” and “A Normalized ShearDeformation Indicator for Ultrasound Strain Elastography inBreast Tissues: An In Vivo Feasibility Study” are both focusedon ultrasound elastography. The first introduced a novel 2Dmultiresolution hybrid method for displacement estimation,to deal with the high compression scenario, while the secondone proposed a normalized shear deformation indicator,which is proposed to boost breast lesion differentiationvia a subsample speckle tracking algorithm. Another two

papers titled “Machine Learning in Ultrasound Computer-Aided Diagnostic Systems: A Survey” and “Differentiationof the Follicular Neoplasm on the Gray-Scale US by ImageSelection Subsampling along with the Marginal OutlineUsing Convolutional Neural Network” both apply machinelearning/artificial intelligence inmedical ultrasound.Thefirstone is a review paper while the second is more specificallydealing with thyroid cancer.

Eight more papers are included in this special issue, cov-ering various new clinical applications ofmedical ultrasound.Yet, four of them are more converged to musculoskeletalstudies, while the others are more diversified for applica-tions. Specifically speaking, the first paper titled “Correlationbetween Pathological Characteristics and Young’s ModulusValue of Spastic Gastrocnemius in a Spinal Cord InjuryRat Model” is about the pathological characteristics andmuscle stiffness of in rats with spinal cord injury using shearwave sonoelastography technology. The second paper titled“Automatic Myotendinous Junction Tracking in UltrasoundImages with Phase-Based Segmentation” aims at automaticlocalizing and tracking of the myotendinous junction, whichis crucial to quantify the interactive length changes of muscleand tendon for understanding the mechanics and patho-logical conditions of the muscle-tendon unit during motionmuscle contraction. The phase congruency was employedto perceive and enhance ridge-like features in the detectionof tendinous tissues with Radon transform. The third papertitled “Gear Shifting of Quadriceps during Isometric KneeExtension Disclosed Using Ultrasonography” is also about

HindawiBioMed Research InternationalVolume 2018, Article ID 6908393, 2 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6908393

2 BioMed Research International

image processing applications on muscle sonography, whereit is found that quadriceps contract with a gear-shiftingpattern under the protocol of isometric knee extension.The fourth and the last paper on muscle that is titled“Musculoskeletal Ultrasonography Assessment of FunctionalMagnetic Stimulation on the Effect of Glenohumeral Sub-luxation in Acute Poststroke Hemiplegic Patients” is moreclinical oriented and presented the application of muscu-loskeletal ultrasonography on evaluation of the efficacy offunctional magnetic stimulation (FMS) in the treatmentof glenohumeral subluxation (GHS) in acute hemiplegicpatients.

The last four papers are on prenatal diagnostics, cancel-lous bone, prostate cancer, and needle biopsy, respectively.The first one titled “Ultrasound in Prenatal Diagnostics andIts Impact on the Epidemiology of Spina Bifida in a NationalCohort from Denmark with a Comparison to Sweden” isbelieved to cover the impact of prenatal ultrasound screeningon the incidence of a major malformation on a national level.The second paper titled “Variability in Ultrasound Backscat-ter Induced by Trabecular Microstructure Deterioration inCancellous Bone” investigates the relationship between ultra-sonic backscatter and cancellous bone microstructure dete-rioration and indicated that the ultrasonic backscatter couldbe affected by cancellous bone microstructure deteriorationdirection. The third paper titled “The Use of UltrasoundImaging in the External Beam Radiotherapy Workflow ofProstate Cancer Patients” provides an updated review on thestatus of prostate cancer ultrasound-guided external beamradiotherapy treatments. The last paper titled “Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound Improves the Pathological Outcomesof US-Guided Core Needle Biopsy That Targets the ViableArea of Anterior Mediastinal Masses” presents results onultrasound-guided core needle biopsy to harvest sufficienttissue with more cellularity that could be used for underlyingancillary molecular studies and improve the pathologic yield.

Yongjin ZhouWeibao Qiu

Zhihong Huang

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