Ultrasound Signal Processing for Quantitative Microvascular Imaging

用于定量微血管成像的超声信号处理

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-04102
• 负责人: Lacefield, James
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 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: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=682936
• 关键词: Ultrasound; Signal; Processing; Quantitative; Microvascular

This Discovery Grant will support our research developing improved methods to use ultrasound to image blood flow in networks of small vessels. This research is important because current medical imaging technologies are not sufficiently effective for measuring the subtle changes in blood flow that can be the earliest evidence that a patient is or is not being helped by treatments for conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.* Our research will improve three important ultrasound technologies used for vascular imaging, namely power Doppler, ultrafast imaging, and contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Power Doppler is an inexpensive, widely available technology for imaging vessel networks, but the images are strongly affected by settings chosen by the operator of the ultrasound system. Our innovation is to automate the selection of some of those settings, which will improve the accuracy of comparisons among images of different patients or among images of an individual patient that are acquired on different days. Ultrafast imaging is a state-of-the-art Doppler method that improves imaging of the smallest vessels by allowing more measurements to be used to produce each image. Our lab is developing a new ultrafast technique named "spread-spectrum Doppler" that will maximize the number of blood-flow measurements made without reducing image quality. We also plan to combine spread-spectrum Doppler with our automated method for choosing scanner settings, which should increase the effectiveness of both techniques. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound uses microscopic bubbles to increase the signal strength from small vessels above the levels that are possible with Doppler. Our lab is developing new methods to statistically analyze contrast-enhanced ultrasound images with the goal of increasing the technique's sensitivity to changes in how well organized or disorganized a vessel network is, which is valuable information to obtain about vessel networks in cancer tumours and other diseased tissues. Our work is also expected to yield new insights into the physical relationships between the structure of blood vessel networks and the information contained in ultrasound images of those vessels that will be valuable to other medical imaging researchers. This research will provide training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and medical physics that will help prepare those students for industry or academic careers designing and developing medical devices.

这笔发现拨款将支持我们的研究，开发改进的方法，利用超声波对小血管网络中的血流进行成像。这项研究之所以重要，是因为目前的医学成像技术在测量血液流动的细微变化方面还不够有效，而血液流动的细微变化可能是表明患者是否得到了癌症、心血管疾病和糖尿病等治疗的帮助的最早证据。*我们的研究将改进用于血管成像的三种重要的超声技术，即能量多普勒、超快成像和增强对比超声。能量多普勒是一种廉价的、广泛可用的血管网络成像技术，但图像受超声系统操作员选择的设置的影响很大。我们的创新是自动选择其中的一些设置，这将提高不同患者的图像之间或在不同日期获取的单个患者的图像之间比较的准确性。超快成像是一种最先进的多普勒方法，它通过允许使用更多的测量来生成每一幅图像，从而改进了对最小血管的成像。我们的实验室正在开发一种新的超快技术，名为“扩频多普勒”，它将在不降低图像质量的情况下，最大限度地增加血流测量的次数。我们还计划将扩频多普勒与我们的自动选择扫描仪设置的方法相结合，这将增加这两种技术的有效性。超声造影剂使用微小的气泡来增加来自小血管的信号强度，使其高于多普勒所能达到的水平。我们的实验室正在开发统计分析对比增强超声图像的新方法，目的是提高该技术对血管网络组织有序或混乱程度变化的敏感度，这是获得关于癌症肿瘤和其他疾病组织中血管网络的宝贵信息。我们的工作还有望为血管网络结构和这些血管的超声图像中包含的信息之间的物理关系提供新的见解，这将对其他医学成像研究人员有价值。这项研究将为生物医学工程、电气工程和医学物理学的本科生和研究生提供培训机会，帮助这些学生为设计和开发医疗器械的行业或学术生涯做准备。