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Sound transmission in human thorax through airway insonification: an experimental and computational study with diagnostic applications

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Abstract

Pulmonary diseases and injury lead to structural and functional changes in the lung parenchyma and airways, often resulting in measurable sound transmission changes on the chest wall surface. Additionally, noninvasive imaging of externally driven mechanical wave motion in the chest (e.g., using magnetic resonance elastography) can provide information about lung stiffness and other structural property changes which may be of diagnostic value. In the present study, a comprehensive computational simulation (in silico) model was developed to simulate sound wave propagation in the airways, parenchyma, and chest wall under normal and pathological conditions that create distributed structural (e.g., pneumothoraces) and diffuse material (e.g., fibrosis) changes, as well as a localized structural and material changes as may be seen with a neoplasm. Experiments were carried out in normal subjects to validate the baseline model. Sound waves with frequency content from 50 to 600 Hz were introduced into the airways of three healthy human subjects through the mouth, and transthoracic transmitted waves were measured by scanning laser Doppler vibrometry at the chest wall surface. The computational model predictions of a frequency-dependent decreased sound transmission due to pneumothorax were consistent with experimental measurements reported in previous work. Predictions for the case of fibrosis show that while shear wave motion is altered, changes to compression wave propagation are negligible, and thus, insonification, which primarily drives compression waves, is not ideal to detect the presence of fibrosis. Results from the numerical simulation of a tumor show an increase in the wavelength of propagating waves in the immediate vicinity of the tumor region.

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Funding

This study received financial support from the National Institutes of Health (Grant Nos. EB012142 and UL1 TR002003 pilot grant 2018-04).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, 842 W. Taylor St, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA

    Harish Palnitkar, Ying Peng & Thomas J. Royston

  2. Richard and Loan Hill Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA

    Brian M. Henry, Zoujun Dai & Thomas J. Royston

  3. University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Hansen A. Mansy & Richard H. Sandler

  4. Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA

    Robert A. Balk

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  1. Harish Palnitkar
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Correspondence to Harish Palnitkar.

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Appendix. Comparison of sound propagation in healthy human lung parenchyma (experiment versus computation)

Appendix. Comparison of sound propagation in healthy human lung parenchyma (experiment versus computation)

Fig. 13
figure 13

a–f Plots showing the variation of frequency response function (FRF) with mechanical frequency for the three healthy human subjects (dashed curves) versus computational simulation (red curve)

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Palnitkar, H., Henry, B.M., Dai, Z. et al. Sound transmission in human thorax through airway insonification: an experimental and computational study with diagnostic applications. Med Biol Eng Comput 58, 2239–2258 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-020-02211-y

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