Acoustic Sensing as a Tool for Brain Tumor Diagnostics

ABSTRACT Accurate intraoperative identification of brain tumor margins remains a major challenge in neurosurgery. Tumors often differ from healthy brain tissue in their mechanical properties, such as stiffness and viscoelasticity, yet current imaging methods provide limited real‐time mechanical feedback during surgery. In this study, the use of acoustic sensing based on surface acoustic wave (SAW) actuators to distinguish between non‐neoplastic brain tissue, primary brain tumors, and metastatic tumors based on their acoustic properties is investigated. Tissue samples are measured ex vivo, and attenuation is analyzed as a function of mass and stiffness. Results showed clear, consistent trends, where non‐neoplastic tissues exhibit increased acoustic attenuation, metastatic tumors exhibited intermediate attenuation, and primary tumors showed the lowest attenuation, reflecting increasing stiffness across these tissue types. These findings align with previously reported mechanical properties from techniques such as magnetic resonance elastography and microindentation, where acoustic/SAW based methodologies have significant potential advantages in throughput, cost‐effectiveness and integrability with other techniques. Accordingly, this work demonstrates that SAW sensing enables reliable sensitivity to biomechanical differences between tissue types, supporting its potential as a real‐time, non‐invasive tool for intraoperative tumor detection.