ASAP: super-contrast vasculature imaging using coherence analysis and high frame- rate contrast enhanced ultrasound
File(s)08304629.pdf (1.69 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Stanziola, Antonio
Leow, CH
Bazigou, Eleni
Weinberg, PD
Tang, M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The very high frame rate afforded by ultrafast ultrasound, combined with microbubble contrast agents, opens new opportunities for imaging tissue microvasculature. However, new imaging paradigms are required to obtain superior image quality from the large amount of acquired data while allowing real-time implementation. In this paper, we report a technique - acoustic sub-aperture processing (ASAP) - capable of generating very high contrast/SNR images of macro- and microvessels, with similar computational complexity to classical Power Doppler (PD) imaging. In ASAP, the received data are split into sub- groups. The reconstructed data from each sub-group are temporally correlated over frames to generate the final image. As signals in sub-groups are correlated but the noise is not, this substantially reduces the noise floor compared to PD. Using a clinical imaging probe, the method is shown to visualize vessels down to 200μm with a SNR 10dB higher than PD, and to resolve microvascular flow/perfusion information in rabbit kidneys non-invasively in vivo at multiple centimeter depth. With careful filter design, the technique also allows estimation of flow direction and separation of fast flow from tissue perfusion. ASAP can readily be implemented into hardware/firmware for real-timing imaging, and can be applied to contrast enhanced and potentially non-contrast imaging and 3D imaging.
Date Issued
2018-08-01
Date Acceptance
2018-01-12
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 2018, 37 (8), pp.1847-1856
ISSN
0278-0062
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
1847
End Page
1856
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
Volume
37
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. For more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Cancer Research UK
Grant Number
EP/M011933/1
C53470/A22353
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Engineering, Biomedical
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Imaging Science & Photographic Technology
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Computer Science
Engineering
Ultrasound
vascular imaging
contrast
SNR
coherence
microbubbles
in vivo
PLANE-WAVE ULTRASOUND
RATE ULTRASONOGRAPHY
CROSS-CORRELATION
DOPPLER
MICROBUBBLES
AGENTS
FREQUENCY
POWER
ELASTOGRAPHY
DOMAIN
08 Information And Computing Sciences
09 Engineering
Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-02-28