Cumulative phase delay imaging for contrast-enhanced ultrasound tomography

Abstract

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Towards Dynamic Contrast Specific Ultrasound Tomography

“…Currently, no contrast-specific modality exists for ultrasound tomography. In fact, speed-of-sound variations and attenuation (normally used to perform ultrasound tomography 15 16 ) due to UCAs can be confused (same range) with those caused by different tissue types 20 22 23 24 . Conversely, CPDI is based on a marker specific for UCAs, thus opening the way to dynamic contrast-specific ultrasound tomography.…”

“…Unlike standard DCE-US in echo-mode, CPDI does not require any particular multi-pulse scheme. In fact, the information required for imaging is contained in the time delay between 2H and F0, which can be extracted from each single pulse 19 20 . Moreover, with a tomographic approach, only one-way time of flight constrains the pulse repetition frequency.…”

“…A tissue-mimicking gelatin phantom (as reported in ref. 20 ) containing a cylindrical cavity with a 6-mm diameter was employed. A solenoid pump E410 (CEME) was used to generate the flow.…”

“…In order to address these shortcomings, and thanks to a newly discovered UCA marker, a contrast-specific imaging modality named cumulative phase delay imaging (CPDI) has recently been proposed for contrast-enhanced ultrasound tomography 19 20 . CPDI is based on the fact that the diverse physical phenomena behind nonlinear propagation in tissue and UCA are producing a different delay accumulation between the second harmonic (2H) and fundamental (F0) component of the ultrasound field.…”

“…CPDI has already proved to be capable of detecting and imaging UCA concentrations when working at pressure regimes (0.05 ≤ MI ≤ 0.2) and frequencies (2.5–3 MHz) of interest for clinical applications. However, although these initial studies demonstrated the feasibility of CPDI, its ability to capture UCA kinetics has never been demonstrated 20 .…”