Hansen Rune, Angelsen Bjørn A J
Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2009 Feb;56(2):280-90. doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2009.1037.
A contrast agent detection method is presented that potentially can improve the diagnostic significance of ultrasound contrast agents. Second order ultrasound field (SURF) contrast imaging is achieved by processing the received signals from transmitted dual frequency band pulse complexes with overlapping high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) pulses. The transmitted HF pulses are used for image reconstruction, whereas the transmitted LF pulses are used to manipulate the scattering properties of the contrast agent. In the present paper, we discuss how SURF contrast imaging potentially can overcome problems and limitations encountered with available contrast agent detection methods, and we give a few initial examples of in vitro measurements. With SURF contrast imaging, the resonant properties of the contrast agent may be decoupled from the HF imaging pulses. This technique is thus especially interesting for imaging contrast bubbles above their resonance frequency. However, to obtain adequate specificity, it is typically necessary to estimate and correct for accumulative nonlinear effects in the forward wave propagation.
本文提出了一种造影剂检测方法，该方法有可能提高超声造影剂的诊断价值。二阶超声场（SURF）造影成像通过处理从发射的具有重叠高频（HF）和低频（LF）脉冲的双频带脉冲复合体接收到的信号来实现。发射的高频脉冲用于图像重建，而发射的低频脉冲用于操纵造影剂的散射特性。在本文中，我们讨论了SURF造影成像如何有可能克服现有造影剂检测方法所遇到的问题和局限性，并给出了一些体外测量的初步示例。通过SURF造影成像，造影剂的共振特性可以与高频成像脉冲解耦。因此，该技术对于在共振频率以上对造影气泡进行成像特别有意义。然而，为了获得足够的特异性，通常需要估计并校正前向波传播中的累积非线性效应。
