Mehrmohammadi Mohammad, Fazzio Robert T, Whaley Dana H, Pruthi Sandhya, Kinnick Randall R, Fatemi Mostafa, Alizad Azra
Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic, College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Ultrasound Med Biol. 2014 Dec;40(12):2819-29. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2014.07.005.
We previously investigated the application of a novel imaging modality, vibro-acoustography (VA), using an annular confocal transducer (confocal VA) integrated into a clinical prone stereotactic mammography system, to detect various breast abnormalities. To shorten the scanning time and provide improved coverage of the breast, we have evolved our imaging system by implementing VA on a clinical ultrasound scanner equipped with a ‘‘quasi-2-D’’ array transducer. We call this technique ‘‘quasi-2-D vibro-acoustography’’ (Q2-DVA). A clinical ultrasound scanner (GE Vivid 7) was modified to perform both ultrasound imaging and VAusing an array transducer consisting of a matrix of 12 rows by 70 columns of ultrasound elements. The newly designed system was used to perform VA on patients with either benign or cancerous lesions. Our results indicate that benign and malignant solid breast lesions were easily detected using our newly modified VA system. It was also possible to detect microcalcifications within the breast. Our results suggest that with further development, Q2-DVA could provide high-resolution diagnostic information in the clinical setting and may be used either as a stand-alone or as a complementary tool in support of other clinical imaging modalities.
我们之前研究了一种新型成像模式——振动声成像（VA）的应用，该模式使用集成在临床俯卧位立体定向乳腺摄影系统中的环形共聚焦换能器（共聚焦VA）来检测各种乳腺异常。为了缩短扫描时间并提高乳腺的覆盖范围，我们通过在配备“准二维”阵列换能器的临床超声扫描仪上实施VA，对我们的成像系统进行了改进。我们将这种技术称为“准二维振动声成像”（Q2-DVA）。对一台临床超声扫描仪（GE Vivid 7）进行了改装，使其能够使用由12行×70列超声元件矩阵组成的阵列换能器同时进行超声成像和VA。新设计的系统用于对患有良性或癌性病变的患者进行VA检查。我们的结果表明，使用我们新改装的VA系统可以轻松检测出乳腺的良性和恶性实性病变。还能够检测出乳腺内的微钙化。我们的结果表明，随着进一步发展，Q2-DVA可以在临床环境中提供高分辨率诊断信息，并且可以作为独立工具或作为支持其他临床成像模式的补充工具使用。
