Clinical breast imaging with ultrasound tomography: A description of the SoftVue system

We describe the technical design and performance of SoftVue, a breast imaging device based on the principles of ultrasound tomography. SoftVue's imaging sensor is a ring shaped transducer operating at 3 MHz and consisting of 2048 elements. Data acquisition is achieved through 512 receive channels. The transducer encircles the breast, which is immersed in warm water while the patient lies in a prone position. The transducer is translated vertically to acquire data from the entire breast. The acquired data are used to reconstruct images using tomographic inversions. The reconstruction engine is based around a blade-server design that houses multiple CPUs and GPUs. Separate algorithms are used to reconstruct reflection, sound speed, and attenuation images. A patient scan generates a stack of each type of image. The system was designed with the clinical goal of detecting and characterizing breast masses based on their biomechanical and morphological properties. Ongoing clinical studies are being used to assess the performance of the system under realistic clinical settings. Results of the clinical assessment are presented. [The authors acknowledge research support from the National Cancer Institute (5 R44 CA165320-03). Neb Duric and Peter Littrup also acknowledge that they have financial interests in the SoftVue technology.]