Radiofrequency ultrasound signals from bovine cartilage samples degraded with trypsin and collagenase

The folder Repository_RF_data contains the radiofrequency (RF) data acquired with an ArtUS EXT-1H system (Telemed, Italy) equipped with a 192 elements linear probe L15-7H40-A5 working in the frequency range 7.5-15 MHz, in the matlab format ".mat".
Data were collected at 15 MHz, with a sampling rate of 40 MHz, adjusting the focus in the middle of the samples.
The analysed samples were bovine cartilage samples, divided in three groups:
- Control group: cartilage sample without any chemical treatment.
- Trypsin group: cartilage samples immersed in a trypsin solution for 4h.
- Collagenase group: cartilage samples immersed in a collagenase solution for 24h.
The folder Repository_RF_data includes 2 matlab variables:
- trypsin.mat = data acquired from 6 samples before and after the trypsin treatment
- collagenase.mat = data acquired from 6 samples before and after the collagenase treatment
Each variable is a TxN cell, where T is the time point of evaluation and N is the number of samples.
The first row of each variable corresponds to the time zero of treatment, that is the control group; while the second row includes measurement at the final time point of treatment (4h for trypsin an 24h for collagenase).
In particular, a single RF frame was acquired for all the analyses. Each recorded RF frame resulted in a matrix in which the columns (57) represented the number of RF scanning lines in a specific RF window, while the rows (727) constituted the number of samples in a single scanning line.
For the details, see the articles published on Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society:
Sorriento A, Cafarelli A, Valenza G, Ricotti L. Ex-vivo quantitative ultrasound assessment of cartilage degeneration. Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2021 Nov;2021:2976-2980. doi: 10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9630198. PMID: 34891870.