Implementation of a Novel 288-Element Dual-Frequency Array for Acoustic Angiography: In Vitro and In Vivo Characterization.

Acoustic angiography is a superharmonic contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging method that produces high-resolution, 3-D maps of the microvasculature. Previous acoustic angiography studies have used twoelement, annular,mechanicallyactuated transducers(called "wobblers") to image microvasculature in preclinical tumor models with high contrast-to-tissue ratio and resolution, but these earlywobbler transducerscould not achieve the depth and sensitivity required for clinical acoustic angiography. In this work, we present a system for performing acoustic angiography with a novel dual-frequency(DF) transducer-a coaxially stacked DF array (DFA). We evaluate the DFA system bothin vitro andin vivo and demonstrate improvements in sensitivity and imaging depth up to 13.1 dB and 10 mm, respectively, compared with previous wobbler probes.