Multi-line Transmission for 3d Ultrasound Imaging: An Experimental Study

Emilia Badescu (1) , Denis Bujoreanu (1) , Lorena Petrusca (2) , Denis Friboulet (3) , Hervé Liebgott (1)

1 Imagerie Ultrasonore
2 RMN et optique : De la mesure au biomarqueur
3 Images et Modèles

Background, Motivation and ObjectiveAchieving a high frame rate in echocardiography is highly important for quantifying the short phases of the cardiac cycle that contain valuable information for medical diagnosis. Additionally, the 3D quantitative assessment of the heart would significantly improve the current measurements used in daily clinical routine. Nevertheless, obtaining ultrafast imagesremains a challenge due to the trade-off between the image quality and a high frame rate, especially when volumetric data is acquired. Among the current ultrafast imaging methods, multi-line-transmit imaging (MLT) provides an increased frame rate but in the same time mostly preserves the image quality. However, the current implementation of this methodin 3D proposed by Ortega et al. [IEEE TUFC 2016] is based on generating the MLT data synthetically by summing up the raw data before beamforming. In this paper we present the first real-time implementation of the MLT in 3D ultrasound.Statement of Contribution/MethodsMulti-line-transmission was performed by dividing the angular aperture into three regions. Then, due to practical limitations, three equally spaced focused beams were transmitted simultaneously in the first YZ plane of the first region. Once the transmission for a full YZ plane was completed, the process was repeated for the first YZ plane of the second region. The same steps were followed till the full volume was insonified. Data acquisition was performed using four Verasonics systems synchronized to drive a 32x32 matrix probe. A transmit frequency of 2.97 MHz was used and the images were acquired using a sampling frequency of 11.9 MHz. The focal point was set to 6.7 cm depth along 27 different angles in elevational direction (YZ) and 30 angles in azimuthal direction (XZ) between -20º and 20º.Results/DiscussionThe contrast and the resolution assessment, performed on a CIRS ultrasound phantom (Figure 1) showed a contrast of 6.36 dB and a mean axial (lateral) resolution of 0.9 mm (1.77 mm) measured for different depths. These values are comparable with those obtained for a 3D focused sequence obtained by using the same emission parameters. The results indicate the potential of MLT 3D for achieving high contrast and resolution while increasing the frame rate. This study thus demonstrates the feasibility of 3D MLT in real-time and extends its possible applications to dynamic cardiac imaging.

Mots clés: ultrasound; high frame rate; multi-line trasmit; 3D imaging; experimental validation

Domaines: Imagerie; Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Emilia Badescu, Denis Bujoreanu, Lorena Petrusca, Denis Friboulet, Hervé Liebgott. Multi-line Transmission for 3d Ultrasound Imaging: An Experimental Study. 2017 IEEE International Ultrasonic Symposium (IUS), Sep 2017, Washington, United States. ⟨hal-01599744⟩