Ultrasonic Echo Probe With Measurement of Contact Pressure Distribution

This probe can measure tissue inside living bodies non-invasively using a thin-film piezoelectric pressure sensor.

This ultrasonic echo apparatus can measure tissue inside living bodies, non-invasively. The developed probe has a film-like piezoelectric sensor installed on the contact surface of an ordinary medical ultrasonic probe, and it can measure the contact pressure distribution between the probe and living bodies. Since it can measure, with an ultrasonic echo image, the deformation of living bodies when a probe is pressed against them dynamically, it can calculate the distribution of mechanical impedance within living bodies by using information on contact pressure at the contact surface.