超音波に光学的色情報を融合した新3Dイメージング技術(Bringing Optical Color to Ultrasound)

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2026-01-23 カリフォルニア工科大学(Caltech)

米国のCalifornia Institute of Technology(カリフォルニア工科大学、Caltech)の研究チームは、従来は白黒表示が主流だった超音波画像に「光学的な色情報」を付与する新手法を開発した。研究では、光と超音波を組み合わせる独自の計測原理を用い、組織が光を吸収した際に生じる微弱な超音波信号を検出することで、分子レベルの違いを色として可視化することに成功した。この技術により、血管、酸素濃度、組織組成などを高い空間分解能で区別でき、従来の超音波では困難だった機能情報の取得が可能となる。放射線被ばくを伴わず、リアルタイム性と安全性を兼ね備える点も特長で、がん診断や循環器疾患評価、基礎生物医学研究への応用が期待される。

超音波に光学的色情報を融合した新3Dイメージング技術(Bringing Optical Color to Ultrasound)
Hybrid rotational ultrasound and photoacoustic tomography (RUS-PAT) combines fast panoramic rotational ultrasound tomography with photoacoustic tomography to enable quasi-simultaneous 3D imaging of soft-tissue structure and vasculature. The system has been used to obtain large-field-of-view, dual-contrast imaging of multiple human anatomical regions, including the head, breast, and extremities.Credit: Yang Zhang

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人体の回転超音波および光音響トモグラフィー Rotational ultrasound and photoacoustic tomography of the human body

Yang Zhang,Shuai Na,Jonathan J. Russin,Karteekeya Sastry,Li Lin,Junfu Zheng,Yilin Luo,Xin Tong,Yujin An,Peng Hu,Konstantin Maslov,Tze-Woei Tan,Charles Y. Liu & Lihong V. Wang
Nature Biomedical Engineering  Published:16 January 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01603-5

Abstract

Imaging the human body′s morphological and angiographic information is essential for diagnosing, monitoring and treating medical conditions. Here we combine the power of ultrasonography for morphological assessment of soft tissue with photoacoustic tomography (PAT) for visualizing blood vessels to enable three-dimensional (3D) panoramic imaging. Specifically, fast panoramic rotational ultrasound tomography and PAT are integrated for hybrid rotational ultrasound and photoacoustic tomography (RUS-PAT), which obtains 3D ultrasound structural and PAT angiographic images of the human body quasi-simultaneously. The rotational ultrasound tomography functionality is achieved using a single-element ultrasonic transducer for ultrasound transmission and rotating arc-shaped arrays for 3D panoramic detection. By switching the acoustic source to a light source, the system is conveniently converted to PAT mode to acquire angiographic images in the same region. Using RUS-PAT, we successfully imaged the human head, breast, hand and foot with a 10-cm-diameter field of view, submillimetre isotropic resolution and 10 s imaging time for each modality. 3D RUS-PAT is a powerful tool for high-speed, dual-contrast imaging of the human body with potential for rapid clinical translation.

医療・健康
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