From an acoustical point of view, bone is a complex medium as it is heterogeneous, anisotropic and viscoelastic. This chapter reviews the basic notions of physical acoustics which are necessary to tackle the problem of the ultrasonic propagation in bone, in the perspective of the application of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) techniques to bone characterization. The first section introduces the b...

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) has been introduced in recent years for the comprehensive noninvasive and non-ionizing evaluation of bones. This paper presents a review of our research work of the last decade including experimental and computational studies for the ultrasonic assessment of fracture healing and osteoporosis. The axial transmission and the backscattering methods have been applied t...

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) has been used to characterize soft tissues at ordinary abdominal ultrasound frequencies (2 to 15 MHz) and is beginning application at high frequencies (20 to 70 MHz). For example, backscatter and attenuation coefficients can be estimated in vivo using a reference phantom. At high frequencies, it is crucial that reverberations do not compromise the measurements. Suc...

Diagnostic ultrasound techniques used in the evaluation of the musculoskeletal system are rapidly evolving. Conventional B-mode and Doppler ultrasound imaging methods are workhorses in the diagnosis and treatment decision making for traumatic and pathologic conditions of joints, tendons, muscles, ligaments, and peripheral nerves. Recently developed sonoelastography techniques enable the qualita...

Angiogenesis has been known as a hallmark of solid tumor cancers for decades, yet ultrasound has been limited in its ability to detect the microvascular changes associated with malignancy. Here, we demonstrate the potential of 'ultrasound localization microscopy' applied volumetrically in combination with quantitative analysis of microvascular morphology, as an approach to overcome this limitat...