Abstract
BackgroundUltrasound transient elastography technology has found its place in elastography because it is safe and easy to operate. However, it’s application in deep tissue is limited. The aim of this study is to design an ultrasound transient elastography system with coded excitation to obtain greater detection depth.MethodsThe ultrasound transient elastography system requires tissue vibration to be strictly synchronous with ultrasound detection. Therefore, an ultrasound transient elastography system with coded excitation was designed. A central component of this transient elastography system was an arbitrary waveform generator with multi-channel signals output function. This arbitrary waveform generator was used to produce the tissue vibration signal, the ultrasound detection signal and the synchronous triggering signal of the radio frequency data acquisition system. The arbitrary waveform generator can produce different forms of vibration waveform to induce different shear wave propagation in the tissue. Moreover, it can achieve either traditional pulse-echo detection or a phase-modulated or a frequency-modulated coded excitation. A 7-chip Barker code and traditional pulse-echo detection were programmed on the designed ultrasound transient elastography system to detect the shear wave in the phantom excited by the mechanical vibrator. Then an elasticity QA phantom and sixteen in vitro rat livers were used for performance evaluation of the two detection pulses.ResultsThe elasticity QA phantom’s results show that our system is effective, and the rat liver results show the detection depth can be increased more than 1 cm. In addition, the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) is increased by 15 dB using the 7–chip Barker coded excitation.ConclusionsApplying 7-chip Barker coded excitation technique to the ultrasound transient elastography can increase the detection depth and SNR. Using coded excitation technology to assess the human liver, especially in obese patients, may be a good choice.
Highlights
Ultrasound transient elastography technology has found its place in elastography because it is safe and easy to operate
A 7-chip Barker code was used for the coded excitation in our study and every chip of the Barker code consisted of four sine waves, abbreviated as 7c4w
The rigorous synchronization of the transient elastography system and coded excitation is executed by using an arbitrary waveform generator
Summary
Ultrasound transient elastography technology has found its place in elastography because it is safe and easy to operate. Several ultrasound elasticity techniques with different tissue vibrations have been reported in the past 20 years, including intravascular ultrasound elastography (IVUSE) [1], quasi-static ultrasound elastography [2,3,4], acoustic radiation force impulse imaging (ARFI) [5, 6], ultrasound vibro-acoustic imaging (USVA) [7, 8], shear wave dispersion ultrasound vibrometry (SDUV) [9], supersonic shear imaging (SSI) [10], external vibration transient elastography [11,12,13] and so on. Ultrasound-based elastography has the advantages of real-time, noninvasive, low-cost, et al ultrasound-based elastographies have a common defect, in that the detection depth is limited because the ultrasound waves attenuate, and low amplitude shear waves attenuate quickly in the tissue
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