Method of characterizing the pathological response of tissue to a treatment plan

Abstract

A method of characterizing the pathological response of tissue to a treatment plan, including: obtaining a set of sequential morphology renderings of the tissue, wherein each rendering corresponds to a particular point in time during the treatment plan; generating a set of representative values of a biomechanical property of the tissue for the set of renderings, wherein each representative value is based on a corresponding rendering; determining a trend of the biomechanical property based on the set of representative values; and predicting response of the tissue to the treatment plan based on the trend of the biomechanical property.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of characterizing pathological response of a tumor in a volume of tissue to a treatment plan, comprising:
 at a computing system in communication with an ultrasound system, generating a set of morphology renderings of the volume of tissue, from acoustic data received from the ultrasound system, wherein the set of morphology renderings is associated with a set of time points spanning at least a portion of the treatment plan;   at the computing system, generating a set of volume average values of a biomechanical property representative of a combination of acoustic speed with at least one of acoustic attenuation and acoustic reflection from the set of morphological renderings;   at the computing system, calculating a rate of change in the biomechanical property for the tumor from the set of volume average values; and   at the computing system, generating a predicted response of the tumor to the treatment plan based on the rate of change in the biomechanical property within the tumor.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating the set of morphology renderings includes suspending the volume of tissue within a bath having a ring transducer immersed in the bath, and passing the ring transducer along an anterior-posterior direction across the volume of tissue. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein generating the set of morphology renderings comprises 1) generating a plurality of two-dimensional cross-sectional images of the tumor and combining the cross-sectional images into a three-dimensional image of the tumor and 2) generating a merged image representing a combination of at least two of acoustic reflection, acoustic attenuation, and acoustic speed within the tumor. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating the set of volume average values includes generating at least one value based upon a combination of acoustic speed, acoustic attenuation, and acoustic reflection data for the tumor. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein calculating the rate of change in the biomechanical property within the tumor includes calculating a slope of a best-fit curve fitted to two or more values in the set of volume average values. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: at an output module of a user interface device in communication with the computing system, informing an entity of the predicted response, thereby enabling assessment of the treatment plan. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: by way of a display in communication with the computing system, automatically recommending an adjustment to the treatment plan, to an entity associated with a patient having the tumor, based upon a comparison between the rate of change in the biomechanical property and a success threshold slope. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein in automatically recommending the adjustment to the treatment plan, the success threshold slope is based upon a prior patient dataset characterizing response of prior patients to the treatment plan, wherein the prior patient dataset provides a set of thresholds indicative of predicted responsiveness to the treatment plan. 
     
     
         9 . A method of characterizing the pathological response of a tissue to a treatment plan, comprising:
 at a computing system in communication with an ultrasound system, obtaining a set of acoustic data, from the ultrasound system, associated with a set of time points spanning at least a portion of the treatment plan;   at the computing system, generating a set of renderings of the tissue based on the set of acoustic data, wherein each rendering in the set of morphology renderings corresponds to a time point of the set of time points;   at the computing system, for each rendering of the set of renderings, generating a quantitative value representative of a combination of acoustic speed with at least one of acoustic reflection and acoustic attenuation, thus generating a set of quantitative values spanning the set of time points;   at the computing system, calculating a trend across the set of quantitative values;   at the computing system, generating a predicted response of the tissue to the treatment plan based on the trend of the quantitative value, thereby characterizing the pathological response of the tissue to the treatment plan.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein determining the trend across the set of quantitative values includes analyzing a general shape of a curve formed by a plot of a set of average values, derived from the set of quantitative values, against a temporal variable. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein generating the predicted response of the tissue includes comparing the rate of change to a threshold, wherein comparing the rate of change to the threshold includes comparing the rate of change to the threshold that is based on data characterizing response of prior patients to the treatment plan. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein generating the set of quantitative values representative of the combination includes characterizing a spatial distribution of at least one biomechanical property in each rendering of the set of renderings. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein generating the set of quantitative values representative of the combination includes calculating a volume average value of at least one biomechanical property of the tissue for each rendering in the set of renderings, thereby generating a sequential set of volume average values. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein calculating the volume average value includes calculating the volume average value characterizing tumor tissue, thereby generating the sequential set of volume average values characterizing tumor tissue. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein calculating the volume average value characterizing tumor tissue includes accounting for a difference between a first value of a biomechanical property within the tumor tissue and a second value of the biomechanical property in background tissue surrounding the tumor tissue, wherein the boundary of background tissue is defined as a region separated from a boundary of the tumor tissue by a distance threshold that is less than 2 centimeters in length. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising calculating a volume average value of breast density within the tissue for each rendering in the set of renderings, and generating the predicted response of the tissue to the treatment plan based on a second trend in breast density across the set of sequential morphology renderings. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein generating the set of renderings includes scanning the tissue with an ultrasound scanner of the ultrasound system and creating images representing acoustic parameters of the tissue with the acoustic data, wherein scanning the tissue includes surrounding breast tissue with a ring transducer and passing the ring transducer along an anterior-posterior direction relative to the breast tissue. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein generating the predicted response of the pathological mass to the treatment plan comprises determining a trend of a ratio between a first biomechanical property and a second biomechanical property, wherein the second biomechanical property is different from the first biomechanical property. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein determining the trend includes comparing a first trend of acoustic speed along a first axis of a multi-dimensional plot to a second trend of acoustic attenuation along a second axis of the multi-dimensional plot, wherein the multi-dimensional plot has a third axis corresponding to a temporal variable. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising: by way of a display in communication with the computing system, automatically recommending an adjustment to the treatment plan, to an entity associated with a patient having the tissue, based upon a comparison between the rate of change in the quantitative value of the combination and a success threshold slope.