TY - JOUR
T1 - High frame rate tri-plane echocardiography with spiral arrays: from simulation to real-time implementation
AU - Harput, Seven
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Major cardiovascular diseases are associated with (regional) dysfunction of the left ventricle. Despite the 3D nature of the heart and its dynamics, the assessment of myocardial function is still largely based on 2D ultrasound imaging thereby making diagnosis heavily susceptible to the operator’s expertise. Unfortunately, to date, 3D echocardiography cannot provide an adequate spatio-temporal resolution in real-time. Hence, tri-plane imaging has been introduced as a compromise between 2D and true volumetric ultrasound imaging. However, tri-plane imaging typically requires high-end ultrasound systems equipped with fully populated matrix array probes embedded with expensive and little flexible electronics for two-stage beamforming. This paper presents an advanced ultrasound system for real-time high frame rate tri-plane echocardiography based on low element count sparse arrays. The system was simulated, experimentally validated, and implemented for real-time operation on the ULA-OP 256 system. Five different array configurations were tested together with four different imaging modalities, including multi-line and planar diverging wave transmission. Despite an unavoidable loss in image quality and sensitivity due to the limited number of elements, high frame rate tri-plane imaging with sparse arrays is shown to be feasible in real-time. In particular, multiline transmission can be exploited to achieve, in tri-plane imaging, the same temporal resolution currently used in clinical 2D echocardiography; while the transmission of planar diverging waves boosts the frame rate up to 250 Hz and may enable real-time functional analysis of the heart.
© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works
AB - Major cardiovascular diseases are associated with (regional) dysfunction of the left ventricle. Despite the 3D nature of the heart and its dynamics, the assessment of myocardial function is still largely based on 2D ultrasound imaging thereby making diagnosis heavily susceptible to the operator’s expertise. Unfortunately, to date, 3D echocardiography cannot provide an adequate spatio-temporal resolution in real-time. Hence, tri-plane imaging has been introduced as a compromise between 2D and true volumetric ultrasound imaging. However, tri-plane imaging typically requires high-end ultrasound systems equipped with fully populated matrix array probes embedded with expensive and little flexible electronics for two-stage beamforming. This paper presents an advanced ultrasound system for real-time high frame rate tri-plane echocardiography based on low element count sparse arrays. The system was simulated, experimentally validated, and implemented for real-time operation on the ULA-OP 256 system. Five different array configurations were tested together with four different imaging modalities, including multi-line and planar diverging wave transmission. Despite an unavoidable loss in image quality and sensitivity due to the limited number of elements, high frame rate tri-plane imaging with sparse arrays is shown to be feasible in real-time. In particular, multiline transmission can be exploited to achieve, in tri-plane imaging, the same temporal resolution currently used in clinical 2D echocardiography; while the transmission of planar diverging waves boosts the frame rate up to 250 Hz and may enable real-time functional analysis of the heart.
© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works
U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2019.2940289
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2019.2940289
M3 - Article
SN - 0885-3010
JO - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
JF - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
ER -
