Multimodal phantom of liver tissue

PLoS One. 2013 May 14;8(5):e64180. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064180. Print 2013.

Abstract

Medical imaging plays an important role in patients' care and is continuously being used in managing health and disease. To obtain the maximum benefit from this rapidly developing technology, further research is needed. Ideally, this research should be done in a patient-safe and environment-friendly manner; for example, on phantoms. The goal of this work was to develop a protocol and manufacture a multimodal liver phantom that is suitable for ultrasound, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging modalities. The proposed phantom consists of three types of mimicked soft tissues: liver parenchyma, tumors, and portal veins, that are made of six ingredients: candle gel, sephadex®, agarose, glycerol, distilled water, and silicone string. The entire procedure is advantageous, since preparation of the phantom is simple, rather cost-effective, and reasonably quick - it takes around 2 days. Besides, most of the phantom's parts can be reused to manufacture a new phantom. Comparison of ultrasound images of real patient's liver and the developed phantom shows that the phantom's liver tissue and its structures are well simulated.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Liver / cytology*
  • Liver / diagnostic imaging
  • Liver / pathology
  • Liver Neoplasms / pathology
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Multimodal Imaging / instrumentation*
  • Phantoms, Imaging* / economics
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed
  • Ultrasonography

Grants and funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement number 238802 (IIIOS project); SINTEF (Trondheim, Norway); the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs of Norway through the National Centre of Competence for Ultrasound and Image-Guided Therapy (Trondheim, Norway); and the project 196726/V50 eMIT (enhanced Minimally Invasive Therapy) in the FRIMED program of the Research Council of Norway. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.