A Preliminary Study on Exploring a potential Ultrasound Method for Predicting Cervical Cancer

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Oncology
• Biophysics

Background:

• Cervical cancer screening is limited in underdeveloped countries due to implementation challenges with current methods.
• Ultrasound offers a potentially non-invasive, repeatable, and low-cost alternative for screening.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the feasibility of using quantitative analysis of ultrasound radio frequency (RF) signals for cervical cancer diagnosis.
• To identify characteristic parameters from RF signals that can differentiate between cancerous and healthy cervical tissues.

Main Methods:

• Ultrasound RF signals were recorded from cervical tissues of 69 patients with cervical cancer and 37 healthy women using a Sonix TOUCH ultrasound system and transvaginal probe.
• Time domain, frequency domain, and fractal dimension (FD) parameters were extracted from the RF signals using specialized software.
• Fourteen spectrum characteristic parameters, including SFD, Higuchi FD, slope, intercept, midbandfit, S1-S4, fuzzy entropy, kurtosis, peak, cross zero count, and cross zero Std, were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Cervical cancer tissues showed statistically significant differences in FD and frequency domain parameters compared to normal tissues (P < 0.05).
• Time-domain parameters did not show statistically significant differences between cancerous and normal tissues (P > 0.05).
• No parameters effectively differentiated cervical squamous cell carcinoma tissues based on differentiation levels.

Conclusions:

• Quantitative analysis of ultrasound RF time series signals presents a promising non-invasive imaging approach for cervical cancer diagnosis.
• Further research is needed to determine the applicability of this method for identifying early-stage or small cervical cancer lesions.