Correlation of tissue constituents with the acoustic properties of skin and wound

The purpose of this study was to compare measurements of ultrasound properties of skin and wound tissue with measurements of material properties such as total collagen concentration, acetic acid soluble collagen concentration, water concentration, and morphologic properties. Using a scanning laser acoustic microscope (SLAM), both ultrasonic speed and attenuation coefficient values were obtained for control skin (2–3 cm from the wound), for skin immediately adjacent to wounds (within 0.3 mm), as well as for wound tissue itself. The attenuation coefficient and speed measurements were lowest for wound tissue followed by adjacent skin and then control skin. As the wounds healed there appeared to be an increase in both speed and attenuation coefficient although the wound age at which these increases started and the length of time for which they continued varied from one dog to the next. The precision of duplicate sample measurement of wave speed was ±1.7% for control skin, whereas that for attenuation coefficient it was ±16%. Both ultrasonic speed and attenuation coefficient were directly correlated with tissue collagen concentration and inversely correlated with tissue water concentration ( p < 0.001). Attenuation coefficient correlated best ( r = 0.73) with acetic acid soluble collagen concentration which reflects the changes in collagen taking place during the repair process. These attenuation measurements made at 100 MHz using the SLAM were compared for control skin and wound samples with measurements made at 10–40 MHz using backscatter acoustic techniques (BAT). The tissue samples analyzed by each ultrasound technique were from adjacent locations on the animals.