Automated Optimization of Doppler Ultrasound Acquisition Parameters for Quantitative Vascular Imaging

用于定量血管成像的多普勒超声采集参数的自动优化

• 批准号: 261323-2012
• 负责人: Lacefield, James
• 金额: $ 1.53万
• 依托单位: University of Western Ontario
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2012-01-01 至 2013-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=509417
• 关键词: Automated; Optimization; Doppler; Ultrasound; Acquisition

The invention of laptop-computer-sized portable ultrasound systems is one of the most significant advances in ultrasound imaging technology over the past decade. Portable ultrasound scanners are used to improve health-care delivery in remote and low-resource settings where hospital-based medical equipment is often inaccessible. The users of these scanners usually have less ultrasound experience and less time available to adjust the scanner's controls than would a hospital-based ultrasound technician. Therefore, simplified controls are critically needed for portable ultrasound systems, especially for Doppler blood-flow imaging, which requires the user to choose a relatively large number of settings on the scanner. Our research program will address this problem by building upon our team's recent invention of an automatic method to tune the control settings of Doppler ultrasound scanners. The method has been demonstrated thus far by imaging flow in an idealized physical model of a vessel network. The goals of the proposed research are to (1) strengthen the theoretical foundation of our Doppler tuning method to enable it to perform reliably under the more challenging flow conditions encountered in live subjects, (2) improve our software implementation of the method to prepare it to operate onboard clinically used ultrasound scanners, and (3) extend the method so it can be applied to additional ultrasonic and optical Doppler blood-flow imaging technologies. The proposed research will produce software versions of our Doppler tuning method that are ready for commercialization. The Discovery Grant also will provide specialized training in Doppler imaging technology for at least three graduate and one undergraduate students in engineering or medical physics during each year of the research program.

笔记本电脑大小的便携式超声系统的发明是过去十年来超声成像技术最重要的进步之一。 便携式超声波扫描仪用于改善偏远和资源匮乏地区的医疗服务，因为这些地区往往无法获得医院医疗设备。 这些扫描仪的用户通常比医院的超声技术人员具有更少的超声经验和更少的可用时间来调整扫描仪的控制。 因此，对于便携式超声系统，特别是对于多普勒血流成像，迫切需要简化的控制，这需要用户在扫描仪上选择相对大量的设置。 我们的研究计划将通过建立在我们的团队最近发明的自动方法来调整多普勒超声扫描仪的控制设置来解决这个问题。 到目前为止，该方法已经通过在血管网络的理想化物理模型中对流动进行成像来证明。 所提出的研究的目标是（1）加强我们的多普勒调谐方法的理论基础，使其能够在活体受试者中遇到的更具挑战性的流动条件下可靠地执行，（2）改进我们的方法的软件实现，使其准备好在临床使用的超声扫描仪上操作，以及（3）扩展该方法，使得其可以应用于附加的超声和光学多普勒血流成像技术。 拟议的研究将产生我们的多普勒调谐方法的软件版本，准备商业化。 发现补助金还将在研究计划的每一年为至少三名工程或医学物理学研究生和一名本科生提供多普勒成像技术的专门培训。