Hirano Hitoshi, Suzuki Rikuto, Omura Masaaki, Nagaoka Ryo, Saito Kozue, Hasegawa Hideyuki
Graduate School of Science and Engineering, University of Toyama, Toyama 930-8555, Japan.
Faculty of Engineering, University of Toyama, Toyama 930-8555, Japan.
Sensors (Basel). 2025 Apr 12;25(8):2441. doi: 10.3390/s25082441.
In this study, we designed an ultrasound transmit-receive sequence to achieve high-frame-rate vascular wall velocity estimation and high-contrast B-mode imaging. The proposed sequence extends conventional dual-transmission schemes by incorporating a third transmission with 180° phase inversion, enabling harmonic imaging via the pulse inversion (PI) method. To mitigate the frame rate reduction caused by the additional transmission, the number of simultaneously transmitted focused beams was increased from two to four, resulting in a frame rate of 231 Hz. A two-dimensional phase-sensitive motion estimator was employed for motion estimation. In vitro experiments using a chicken thigh moving in two dimensions yielded RMSE values of 3% (vertical) and 16% (horizontal). In vivo experiments on a human carotid artery demonstrated that the PI method achieved a lumen-to-tissue contrast improvement of 0.96 dB and reduced artifacts. Velocity estimation of the posterior vascular wall showed generally robust performance. These findings suggest that the proposed method has strong potential to improve atherosclerosis diagnostics by combining artifact-suppressed imaging with accurate motion analysis.
在本研究中，我们设计了一种超声发射-接收序列，以实现高帧率血管壁速度估计和高对比度B模式成像。所提出的序列通过合并具有180°相位反转的第三次发射来扩展传统的双发射方案，从而通过脉冲反转（PI）方法实现谐波成像。为了减轻额外发射导致的帧率降低，同时发射的聚焦波束数量从两个增加到四个，从而实现了231 Hz的帧率。采用二维相敏运动估计器进行运动估计。使用在二维中移动的鸡大腿进行的体外实验产生的均方根误差值为3%（垂直）和16%（水平）。在人体颈动脉上进行的体内实验表明，PI方法实现了管腔与组织对比度提高0.96 dB并减少了伪像。血管后壁的速度估计总体表现稳健。这些发现表明，所提出的方法通过将伪像抑制成像与精确运动分析相结合，具有改善动脉粥样硬化诊断的强大潜力。
