Research
The Medical UltraSound Imaging Center, MUSIC, is an international expertise center on functional imaging using ultrasound for medical applications. MUSIC develops ultrasound based techniques for improved diagnosis, guiding intervention, and monitoring treatment from idea to initial clinical application. The close collaboration with clinicians on one side and commercial partners on the other side warrants that these techniques not only address important clinical problems, but also facilitate commercialization of the developed solutions.
Flow, strain, and shear wave imaging methods are developed to assess the functionality of the cardiovascular system, muscles of the extremities, and urinary tract. These techniques are also used to improve early detection of cancer in breast and the neck. The fourth focus is on quantitative echography and image analysis in order to stage liver steatosis, guide interventional procedures, and Artificial Intelligence driven prenatal scanning. Additionally, our center has developed a freeware software package for quantitative monitoring of the performance of ultrasound equipment: QA4US.
The research is funded primarily by the Dutch Research Council-Applied and Engineering Sciences (NWO-AES)) and the European Union (HORIZON2020, Eurostars). Most projects are carried out in close collaboration with industry (Siemens, Philips Medical Systems, Telemed, Bracco, Verasonics). MUSIC is part of the Department of Medical Imaging and embedded in the research theme “Vascular Damage” of the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen.
