3D tissue mimicking biophantoms for ultrasound imaging: bioprinting and image analysis

Tissue-mimicking phantoms can be used to study various diagnostic imaging techniques and image-guided therapeutic interventions. Bioprinting enables the incorporation of live cells into printed phantoms. Some advantages of bioprinted phantoms include their close similarity to in vivo condition and change in phantom composition with time as the cells proliferate and secrete the extra cellular matrix components. In this study, we 3D-print alginate to form three different types of phantoms; those containing human vascular smooth muscle cells, human liver cancer cells, and no cells, each representing benign tissue, cancer tissue, and controls, respectively. The phantoms are imaged with a clinical ultrasound scanner and Temporal Enhanced Ultrasound (TeUS) data is collected. The comparison of the power spectrum of TeUS depicts separation among the three phantom types.