Dr. Nachiket H. Gokhale, a Weidlinger research engineer, has co-authored a paper that proposes a nonlinear imaging algorithm that could be used to distinguish between benign and malignant growths.

NEW YORK, NY - Dr. Nachiket H. Gokhale, a research engineer in the applied science group of Weidlinger Associates, is co-author of a paper that was published on January 30, 2009, in Physics in Medicine and Biology (54; 1191-1207). The paper, “Linear and Nonlinear Elasticity Imaging of Soft Tissue in vivo: Demonstration of Feasibility,” establishes the feasibility of imaging the linear and nonlinear elastic properties of soft tissue using ultrasound.

The research has its genesis in two physical phenomena: abnormal growths in the soft tissue of the human body tend to be stiffer than background normal tissue; and malignant growths stiffen more rapidly than benign growths in response to applied strain, because they have different nonlinear parameters. The paper compares the variation of strain distribution with overall strain, the variation of secant modulus with overall applied strain, and the distribution of nonlinear parameters in a fully nonlinear hyperelastic model of breast tissue.

The authors conclude that imaging the nonlinear parameters offers the most accurate representation of the elastic properties of tissue, conjecturing that their nonlinear imaging algorithm could be used to distinguish between benign and malignant growths in the breast and prostate. Their research also suggests that algorithms dependent on linear elastic properties of soft tissue alone are insufficient.

Dr. Gokhale’s co-authors are his thesis advisor, Assad A. Oberai, and Sevan Goenezen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Paul E. Barbone (his co-advisor), Boston University; and Timothy J. Hall, Amy M. Sommer, and Jingfeng Jiang, University of Wisconsin. Dr. Gokhale earned MS (2003) and PhD (2007) degrees in mechanical engineering from Boston University. The paper is available online at stacks.iop.org/PMB/54/1191.

Dr. Gokhale’s research enhances Weidlinger’s expertise in computer simulation of medical diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound, a major application of the firm’s virtual-prototyping software, PZFlex (www.pzflex.com).