Abstract
Contrast echocardiography (CE) ultrasound with microbubble contrast agents has significantly advanced our capability for assessment of cardiac function, including myocardium perfusion quantification. However, in standard CE techniques obtained with line by line scanning, the frame rate and image quality are limited. Recent research has shown significant frame-rate improvement in noncontrast cardiac imaging. In this work, we present and initially evaluate, both in vitro and in vivo, a high-frame-rate (HFR) CE imaging system using diverging waves and pulse inversion sequence. An imaging frame rate of 5500 frames/s before and 250 frames/s after compounding is achieved. A destruction-replenishment sequence has also been developed. The developed HFR CE is compared with standard CE in vitro on a phantom and then in vivo on a sheep heart. The image signal-to-noise ratio and contrast between the myocardium and the chamber are evaluated. The results show up to 13.4-dB improvement in contrast for HFR CE over standard CE when compared at the same display frame rate even when the average spatial acoustic pressure in HFR CE is 36% lower than the standard CE. It is also found that when coherent compounding is used, the HFR CE image intensity can be significantly modulated by the flow motion in the chamber.
Highlights
M ICROBUBBLES for contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging are bringing new information in clinical practice and preclinical research [1]
We have demonstrated that HFR Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) using plane wave transmission, combined with spatial and temporal signal processing, is able to produce
We have recently demonstrated the use of HFR CEUS and image tracking for ultrasound imaging velocimetry to map arterial flow and wall shear stress [19] and in visualizing the flow profile by controlled destruction of a volume of bubbles and observing the resulting bubble void subsequently evolve within the flow using HRF CEUS [20]
Summary
M ICROBUBBLES for contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging are bringing new information in clinical practice and preclinical research [1]. These microbubbles, or ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs), typically have a similar size (of the order of microns) to red blood cells. Manuscript received November 3, 2017; accepted July 12, 2018. Date of publication July 17, 2018; date of current version December 20, 2018. Tang are with the Ultrasound Laboratory for Imaging and Sensing, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, U.K. Sboros are with the Institute of Biological Chemistry Biophysics and Bioengineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
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