Welcome to Masuda laboratory of Biological and Environmental Sensing Systems, Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering (BASE), Tokyo University A&T, Japan. Since 2003, we have various experiences through research activities (see What's new?). The researches of our laboratory aim to contribute medical ultrasound by introducing engineering methods and to enhance the quality of diagnosis and treatment.

Now echography (ultrasound image diagnosis) is used in every medical field because it is the easiest, cheapest and safest imaging modality. A doctor or a physician obtains echogram (ultrasound image) of a patient by just putting a small ultrasound probe on the body surface shown as the right figure. Equipment of echography is now so small to be carried wherever a patient is. Safety to patient is completely guaranteed as long as strength of ultrasound is for diagnosis, that is why echography is the only modality to observe a fetus. Echography has indispensable advantages to other imaging modalities of X-ray CT, MRI and PET.

However, echogram is blurred because of mm order wavelength and that makes a doctor difficult to match echogram with his anatomical knowledge to diagnose. And reproduction of echogram is not easy to handle the probe manually. Those are why a long term of experience is required to diagnose with echogram. Even by experienced doctors, time to diagnose and result of diagnose may depend on a doctor. From these reasons, we are now interested in the recognition of "eye" and "hand" of a doctor in echography. Image processing and robotics should be applied to understanding echogram and to handle the probe, respectively. By introducing mechanical interface between a doctor and a patient, a tele-echography system can be realized for patients who live in rural area and isolated islands.

Finally, we are also interested in medical treatment. Ultrasound can be applied to not only diagnosis but also treatment. We established a phenomena that microcapsules of µm order are easily destroyed by ultrasound emission near their resonant frequency. Making use of it, if microcapsules containing vaporized drug are injected into human body and destroyed near diseased part by external ultrasound exposure, a physical Drug Delivery System (DDS) is realized.

According to the background above, we are running the following researches at present.

• Development of robotic echography system
• Developent of a recognition software of internal organs by processing echogram
• Drug Delivery System by detection and destruction of microcapsules in humen body

For more information, please refer Research page. If there is any question, please send an e-mail to Kohji Masuda, Associate professor of the laboratory.