IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2018 Oct;65(10):1977-1980. doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2018.2855042. Epub 2018 Jul 11.
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging has great potential for use in many new ultrasound clinical applications. We recently proposed a novel CEUS imaging sequence, Hadamard-encoded multipulses (HEM), to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the contrast-to-tissue ratio (CTR) as compared to other classic CEUS methods. HEM increases microbubble responses by using longer coded transmit pulses and the fast polarity change between coded pulses. In this study, we propose to combine the HEM pulse with multiplane wave (MW) imaging technique to further improve CEUS imaging SNR and contrast-to-noise ratio. During MW-HEM transmissions, the microbubbles undergo multiple fast pulse polarity changes, leading to significantly improved microbubble nonlinear responses, and thus further enhanced SNR and CTR as compared to HEM alone or other CEUS sequences. This improvement may facilitate more robust CEUS imaging for deep abdominal organs and the heart.
超声造影（CEUS）成像在许多新的超声临床应用中具有巨大的应用潜力。我们最近提出了一种新的 CEUS 成像序列，即 Hadamard 编码多脉冲（HEM），与其他经典的 CEUS 方法相比，该序列可以提高信噪比（SNR）和对比到组织比（CTR）。HEM 通过使用更长的编码发射脉冲和编码脉冲之间的快速极性变化来增加微泡的响应。在这项研究中，我们建议将 HEM 脉冲与多平面波（MW）成像技术相结合，以进一步提高 CEUS 成像的 SNR 和对比噪声比。在 MW-HEM 传输过程中，微泡经历多次快速脉冲极性变化，导致微泡非线性响应显著增强，因此与 HEM 单独或其他 CEUS 序列相比，SNR 和 CTR 进一步提高。这种改进可能有助于对深部腹部器官和心脏进行更稳健的 CEUS 成像。
