Verification of relationship between transmission/reception conditions of high-frequency plane wave compounding and evaluation accuracy of extended amplitude envelope statistics

Abstract

Amplitude envelopment statistics is one of the effective analysis method for quantitative ultrasound. In the studies using a single transducer of around 15–25 MHz and the Double-Nakagami (DN) model, it was possible to evaluate fat mass in rat livers. In order to realize clinical applications, it is essential to study with array probes, especially to understand the influence of the sound field characteristics on the amplitude envelope statistics. In this study, fatty liver simulated phantoms which were containing two types of scatterers was observed with five types of high-frequency(15–40 MHz) linear array probes, and the amplitude enveloping characteristics were analyzed using the DN model to evaluate the fat constitution. As a result, it was possible to evaluate fatty components with high accuracy under conditions in which fat is distributed in low density, such as in mild fatty liver. No significant differences in evaluation systems were observed among the probes, probably due to the effect of parallel plane wave transmission and reception.