Quantitative bladder volume assessment on the basis of nonlinear wave propagation

Catheterization remains the gold standard for bladder volume assessment, but it is invasive, uncomfortable to the patient, and introduces the risk of infections and trauma. To reduce the need for a urinary catheter, a new method has recently been introduced that non-invasively and instantaneously measures the bladder volume on the basis of nonlinear wave propagation and using a single diverging acoustic beam. The performance of the original computational method to quantitatively measure volume was compared with an alternative algorithm using simulations on nonlinear wave propagation and in-vivo measurements. Measurements were performed with an experimental setup including a custom designed multilayer transducer.