Contrast-enhanced plane-wave ultrasound imaging of the rat eye.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Urs R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7113110 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Investigation of nanobubble (NB) pharmacokinetics in contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) at the pixel level shows a unique phenomenon where the first pass of the contrast agent bolus is accompanied by a second wave. This effect has not been previously observed in CEUS with microbubbles. The objective of this study was to investigate this second-wave phenomenon and its potential clinical applications. Seven mice with a total of fourteen subcutaneously-implanted tumors were included in the experiments. After injecting a bolus of NBs, the NB-CEUS images were acquired to record the time-intensity curves (TICs) at each pixel. These TICs are fitted to a pharmacokinetic model which we designed to describe the observed second-wave phenomenon. The estimated model parameters are presented as parametric maps to visualize the characteristics of tumor lesions. Histological analysis was also conducted in one mouse to compare the molecular features of tumor tissue with the obtained parametric maps. The second-wave phenomenon is evidently shown in a series of pixel-based TICs extracted from either tumor or tissues. The value of two model parameters, the ratio of the peak intensities of the second over the first wave, and the decay rate of the wash-out process present large differences between malignant tumor and normal tissue (0.04 < Jessen-Shannon divergence < 0.08). The occurrence of a second wave is a unique phenomenon that we have observed in NB-CEUS imaging of both mouse tumor and tissue. As the characteristics of the second wave are different between tumor and tissue, this phenomenon has the potential to support the diagnosis of cancerous lesions.
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Project description:Ultrafast ultrasound is an emerging modality that offers new perspectives and opportunities in medical imaging. Plane wave imaging (PWI) allows one to attain very high frame rates by transmission of planar ultrasound wave-fronts. As a plane wave reaches a given scatterer, the latter becomes a secondary source emitting upward spherical waves and creating a diffraction hyperbola in the received RF signals. To produce an image of the scatterers, all the hyperbolas must be migrated back to their apexes. To perform beamforming of plane wave echo RFs and return high-quality images at high frame rates, we propose a new migration method carried out in the frequency-wavenumber (f-k) domain. The f-k migration for PWI has been adapted from the Stolt migration for seismic imaging. This migration technique is based on the exploding reflector model (ERM), which consists in assuming that all the scatterers explode in concert and become acoustic sources. The classical ERM model, however, is not appropriate for PWI. We showed that the ERM can be made suitable for PWI by a spatial transformation of the hyperbolic traces present in the RF data. In vitro experiments were performed to outline the advantages of PWI with Stolt's f-k migration over the conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) approach. The Stolt's f-k migration was also compared with the Fourier-based method developed by J.-Y. Lu. Our findings show that multi-angle compounded f-k migrated images are of quality similar to those obtained with a stateof- the-art dynamic focusing mode. This remained true even with a very small number of steering angles, thus ensuring a highly competitive frame rate. In addition, the new FFT-based f-k migration provides comparable or better contrast-to-noise ratio and lateral resolution than the Lu's and DAS migration schemes. Matlab codes for the Stolt's f-k migration for PWI are provided.
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Project description:ObjectiveAlthough plane wave imaging (PWI) with multiple plane waves (PWs) steered at different angles enables ultrafast three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasonic imaging, there is still a challenging tradeoff between image quality and frame rate. To address this challenge, we recently proposed the aperiodic PWI (APWI) with mathematical analysis and simulation study. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of APWI and evaluate the performance with phantom and in vivo experiments.MethodsAPWI with a concentric ring angle pattern (APWI-C) and APWI with a sunflower pattern (APWI-S) are evaluated. For experimental verification of the methods, the experimental results are compared with simulation results in terms of the spatial resolution and the mainlobe-to-sidelobe ratio. In addition, the performance of APWI is compared with that of conventional PWI by using a commercial phantom. To examine the potential for clinical use of APWI, a gallstone phantom study and an in vivo carotid artery experiment are also conducted.ResultsIn the phantom study, the APWI methods provide a contrast ratio approximately 2-3 dB higher than that of PWI. In a gallstone experiment, the proposed methods yield 3-D rendered stone images more similar to the real stones than PWI. In the in vivo carotid artery images, APWI reduces the clutter artifacts inside the artery.ConclusionPhantom and in vivo studies show that the APWI enhances the contrast without compromising the spatial resolution and frame rate.SignificanceThis study experimentally demonstrates the feasibility and advantage of APWI for ultrafast 3-D ultrasonic imaging.
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Project description:This work presents spatially compounded plane wave imaging using a laser-induced ultrasound source. The plane wave source consisted of a 30??m thick film of carbon black-doped PDMS cured on a 100??m thick polyester substrate and presented a rectangular aperture of 40?×?3?mm. It was placed in front of a linear ultrasound array, passing through the imaging plane allowing overlap of the detection plane and the insonification plane. Illumination was provided by an array of optical fibre bundles placed above the imaging plane, at an angle. We will first present the general imaging set up and instrumentation used, after which details are given on the fabrication of the transmitter itself and on the objects that were imaged. Comparing laser-induced and conventional ultrasound images of wire phantoms shows the point-spread-function to be, in general, slightly better laterally in the conventional case but more homogeneous throughout the imaging plane with the laser-induced source. Imaging of a tissue-mimicking phantom shows a 55% improvement in contrast between a tumour and the background when using laser-induced ultrasound, as compared to the conventional case.
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