Evaluation of materials for confection of phantoms to mimetize acoustic properties of tendons

Background The tendon is a structure found in different parts of the human body. Damages within tendons cause movement deficit and discomfort, which requires medical and therapeutic treatment. One useful tool is the therapeutic ultrasound; however, fine adjustment is required to avoid further lesions to the patient. Aiming at enhancing the resources for the research in the study of therapeutic ultrasound and the knowledge regarding its application to tendons, the objective of this work is to evaluate materials to prepare ultrasonic phantoms that mimic the acoustic properties of the tendons. Materials and methods The acoustic characterization of a pig tendon and three PVCP-based phantoms were made. The transmission-reception method was used, and the propagation speed and attenuation of each phantom were calculated. Results The tendon showed an attenuation of 4.8 ± 1.7 dB cm −1 and propagation speed of 1497.5 ± 21.6 m s −1 . The attenuation of the phantoms varied from 1.3 ± 1.2 to 4.0 ± 1.0 dB cm −1 and velocity from 1509.9 ± 31.8 to 1519.8 ± 26.7 m s −1 . Conclusions We concluded that among the materials used, it was possible to find values statistically similar to this animal tendon in the PVCP phantom with 15% glycerin and 10% PVC powder. Complementary studies with other materials and protocols are needed to mimic other values found in the literature.