A Three-Dimensional Transrectal Ultrasound Imaging System

Prostate cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers in men, and earlydetection of prostate cancer is pivotal for the success of treatment. Prostate biopsy is usedcommonly for the prostate cancer, and it provides good results. In the procedure, medicalimaging tools are used to visualize the prostate and guide the needle to obtain biopsiesfrom the prostate. There are two major screening tools used in biopsy, including TRUS(Transrectal Ultrasound) and MRI. Compared with MRI, TRUS image is disturbed by thespeckle noise and artifact and the quality of TRUS image is less satisfied. However, TRUSis a safe and low-cost medical imaging technology and could guide the needle biopsy in realtime. Traditional B Mode TRUS is an inexpensive modality for prostate imaging, but thereare some limitations. Physicians could only obtain the section2D image of the anatomywith B Mode ultrasound imaging and have to guide the needle to the destiny with priorinformation. The3D TRUS provide a cubic3D image for the physicians and they could findthe locations of the biopsy much more accurately. Thus, research in3D TRUS is significantfor the prostate biopsy.A3D TRUS imaging system is presented in this thesis. The system consists of hard-ware and software. In the hardware, the mechanical device, stepper motor, control circuit,B Mode TRUS and PC workshop are presented. The control circuit controls the rotationof the motor, and motor drives the transducer which is mounted in the mechanical device.PC workshop collects a series of2D ultrasound image with the image acquisition card. Thesoftware includes the firmware of MCU and software of the PC workshop. The firmwarecontrols the rotation of the motor and communicates with the PC workshop though UARTand the software of the PC workshop reconstructs the3D image with the2D image seriesand display the3D image. In addition, we introduce some needle detection algorithms for3D ultrasound image and the needle segmentation is embedded into the software platform.Experiments based on phantom are made to validate the system.The3D TRUS system is inexpensive and good foundation for the prostate biopsy hasbeen laid.