Abstract
The ability to measure the imaging performance of pre-clinical and clinical ultrasound scanners is important but difficult to achieve objectively. The Edinburgh Pipe Phantom was originally developed to assess the technical performance of clinical scanners up to 15MHz. It comprises a series of anechoic cylinders with diameters 0.4 – 8mm embedded in agar-based tissue mimic. This design enables measurement of the characteristics (Resolution Integral R, Depth of Field LR, Characteristic Resolution DR) of grey-scale images with transducer centre frequencies from about 2.5 to 15MHz. We describe further development of the Edinburgh Pipe Phantom as a tool for characterising ultrasound scanners with centre frequencies up to at least 50MHz. This was achieved by moulding a series of anechoic pipe structures (diameters 0.045 – 1.5mm) into a block of agar-based tissue mimic. We report measurements of R, LR and DR for a series of 10 transducers (5 single element and 5 array transducers) designed for pre-clinical scanning, with centre frequencies in the range 15-55 MHz. Values of R ranged from 18-72 for single element transducers and 49-58 for linear array transducers. In conclusion, the pre-clinical pipe phantom was able to successfully determine the imaging characteristics of ultrasound probes up to 55MHz.
Published Version
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