Coherent Plane-Wave Compounding for Very High Frame Rate Ultrasonography and Transient Elastography
Coherent Plane-Wave Compounding for Very High Frame Rate Ultrasonography and Transient Elastography
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DOI：
10.1109/tuffc.2009.1067
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发表时间：
2009-03-01
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Fink, Mathias
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Montaldo, Gabriel;Tanter, Mickael;Fink, Mathias
超快帧速率在超声波中的出现！最近，由于新的成像方式的发展，成像已经成为可能，例如瞬时弹性成像。数据采集率高达数千(如果图像/秒)，能够实时可视化生物组织中传播的剪切机械波，传递有关组织局部粘弹性属性的信息。第一个提出的达到这种超快帧速率的方法是将平面波发射到介质中。然而，由于波束形成过程随后被限制在接收模式，在超快模式下获得的回声图像在分辨率和对比度方面质量较低，并且影响瞬时弹性成像模式的稳健性。本文提出了改进波束形成过程的方法，利用合成平面波传输的相干重组来恢复高质量的回波图像，而不降低高帧稀有能力。推导了该方法与传统B型成像在对比度、信噪比和分辨率方面的比较的理论模型。我们的模型预测，明显更少的辐射次数，低10倍，就足以达到与传统B超相当的石油图像质量。在模拟组织的模体中进行的体外实验证实了理论预测。这样的结果提高了相干化合物的吸引力，用于标准成像模式，如B型或彩色流动。此外，在瞬变弹性成像的背景下，与平坦的声学相比，可以在提高图像质量的同时保持超快的帧速率。提出并讨论了对暂态弹性成像模式的改进。
The emergence of ultrafast frame rates in ultrasonic! imaging has been recently made possible by the development of new imaging modalities such as transient elastography. Data acquisition rates reaching more than thousands (if images per second enable the real-time visualization of shear mechanical waves propagating in biological tissues, which convey in-formation about local viscoelastic properties of tissue. The first proposed approach for reaching such ultrafast frame rates consists of transmitting plane waves into the medium. However, because the beamforming process is then restricted to the receive mode, the echographic images obtained in the ultrafast mode suffer from a low quality in terms of resolution and contrast and affect the robustness of the transient elastography mode. It is here proposed to improve the beamforming process by using it coherent recombination of compounded plane-wave transmissions to recover high-quality echographic images without, degrading the high frame rare capabilities. A theoretical model is derived for the comparison between the proposed method and the conventional B-mode imaging in terms of contrast, signal-to-noise ratio, and resolution. Our model predicts that; a significantly smaller number of insonifications, 10 times lower, is sufficient to reach oil image quality comparable to conventional B-mode. Theoretical predictions are confirmed by in vitro experiments performed in tissue-mimicking phantoms. Such results raise the appeal of coherent compounds for use with standard imaging modes Such as B-mode or color flow. Moreover, in the context of transient elastography, ultrafast frame rates can be preserved while increasing the image quality compared with flat insonifications. Improvements oil the transient elastography mode are presented and discussed.