Post-beamforming Volterra filters for contrast-assisted ultrasonic imaging: In-vivo results

Pornchai Phukpattaranont, Mamoun F. Al-Mistarihi, Emad S Ebbini

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present the first verification of the contrast enhancement achieved by the post-beamforming second-order Volterra filter in vivo. Images of the kidney of a juvenile pig were obtained before and after infusion of contrast agent (SonoVue, Bracco, Geneva, Switzerland) at various concentrations. For example, at a concentration of 0.01 mL/kg, B-mode images (3 cycles at 1.56 MHz transmit frequency) show no quantificable change due to the presence of the contrast agent. Pulse inversion (PI) images without second harmonic (SH) filtering showed 10 dB enhancement and evidence of residual tissue components due to motion. SH imaging on PI data produced 14 dB enhancement with some loss in resolution. On the other hand, quadratic filtering produced 23 dB enhancement at twice the frame rate. This performance was achieved with quadratic filters derived using a new algorithm leading to a computationally efficient separable implementation of the quadratic kernel. This implementation should allow for real-time implementation of quadratic filtering on commercial ultrasound scanners.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1191-1194
Number of pages4
JournalProceedings of the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium
Volume2
StatePublished - 2003
Event2003 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium - Proceedings - Honolulu, HI, United States
Duration: Oct 5 2003Oct 8 2003

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