Measurement of sound speed of skin by using ultrasonic microscopy

Ultrasonic microscopy characterizes mechanical properties of pathological sections without staining by measuring ultrasonic parameters such as sound speed or attenuation. The sound speed of melanoma which is a malignant skin tumor was measured by using a high frequency ultrasonic microscopy in this study. The optical image of HE-stained sections of melanoma specimen and the image from the ultrasonic microscopy were corresponded. The transducer of the ultrasonic microscopy was set as central frequency of 80MHz, focal length of 1.5mm and diameter 1.2mm. A fast scanning was done and the image size was 300 * 300 and 2.4mm * 2.4mm. Randomly ROI was taken and the sound speed was measured. At this stage, the sound speed of melanoma is 1545m/s. It provides the information for the objective judgment of skin diseases.