Biomedical acoustics: Waves within—Tissue issues and sonic solutions

Biomedical acousticians study the interaction of sound waves with biological cells and tissues, often with the goal of diagnosing or treating disease. At this Honolulu meeting, special sessions that primarily focus on disease diagnosis include: applications of high-frequency ultrasound (>10 MHz); in vivo applications of quantitative ultrasound; lung ultrasound; brain and super-resolution imaging; and blood flow imaging/quantification. Three other sessions focus on treatment planning and monitoring including: data-driven focused ultrasound; tissue property measurements for therapeutic ultrasound procedures; and sound propagation in inhomogeneous media, which is joint with physical acoustics and covers both biomedical and non-destructive evaluation applications. These eight special sessions in biomedical acoustics demonstrate the breadth of the field and will likely include presentations on the basic physics of sound propagation up through human clinical translation. In this presentation, I will provide a general overview of the special session topics, as well as highlighting some of the exciting work in the general topics in biomedical acoustics sessions.