High-Frame-Rate Contrast Echocardiography Using Diverging Waves: Initial In Vitro and In Vivo Evaluation

Contrast echocardiography (CE) ultrasound with microbubble contrast agents has significantly advanced our capability for assessment of cardiac function, including myocardium perfusion quantification. However, in standard CE techniques obtained with line by line scanning, the frame rate and image qua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control ferroelectrics, and frequency control, 2018-12, Vol.65 (12), p.2212-2221
Main Authors: Toulemonde, Matthieu, Yuanwei Li, Shengtao Lin, Cordonnier, Fabien, Butler, Mairead, Duncan, W. Colin, Eckersley, Robert J., Sboros, Vassilis, Meng-Xing Tang
Format: Article
Language:English
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Acoustic noise
Acoustics
Animals
Compounding
Contrast agents
Contrast Media - chemistry
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging
Doppler effect
Echocardiography
Echocardiography - methods
Female
Heart
Heart - diagnostic imaging
high-frame-rate echocardiography
Image contrast
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods
Image quality
Microbubbles
Myocardium
myocardium perfusion
Phantoms, Imaging
Probes
Replenishment
Sheep
Signal-To-Noise Ratio
ultrafast diverging beams
Ultrasonic imaging
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Summary:Contrast echocardiography (CE) ultrasound with microbubble contrast agents has significantly advanced our capability for assessment of cardiac function, including myocardium perfusion quantification. However, in standard CE techniques obtained with line by line scanning, the frame rate and image quality are limited. Recent research has shown significant frame-rate improvement in noncontrast cardiac imaging. In this work, we present and initially evaluate, both in vitro and in vivo, a high-frame-rate (HFR) CE imaging system using diverging waves and pulse inversion sequence. An imaging frame rate of 5500 frames/s before and 250 frames/s after compounding is achieved. A destruction-replenishment sequence has also been developed. The developed HFR CE is compared with standard CE in vitro on a phantom and then in vivo on a sheep heart. The image signal-to-noise ratio and contrast between the myocardium and the chamber are evaluated. The results show up to 13.4-dB improvement in contrast for HFR CE over standard CE when compared at the same display frame rate even when the average spatial acoustic pressure in HFR CE is 36% lower than the standard CE. It is also found that when coherent compounding is used, the HFR CE image intensity can be significantly modulated by the flow motion in the chamber.
ISSN:0885-3010
1525-8955
DOI:10.1109/TUFFC.2018.2856756