Multi-line transmission for 3D ultrasound imaging: An experimental study

Abstract

Achieving 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 images remains 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-linetransmit imaging (MLT) provides an increased frame rate but in the same time mostly preserves the image quality. In this paper we present the first real-time experimental implementation of the MLT in 3D ultrasound. The results indicate the potential of 3D MLT 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.

A complex flow phantom for medical imaging: ring vortex phantom design and technical specification

“…For these reasons, Ultrasound is currently the first choice as a diagnostic modality for the assessment of several cardiovascular pathologies [7]. Recent developments include 2D and 3D real-time angle independent Ultrasound Doppler imaging techniques, based on Vector Flow Imaging (VFI), and post-processing algorithms for particle velocimetry tracking and volume quantification [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. A specific Ultrasound VFI technique -Transverse Oscillation (TO) -has been FDA approved (2013) and is clinically available on commercial scanners (eg.…”

3-D High Frame Rate Imaging With Motion Compensation (3-D HFR With MoCo): An Experimental Evaluation

“…Even if only three 3-D diverging wave strategies were tested in this study, those are the most straightforward and used strategies in the ultrasound community [4], [6], [11], [30]. Other 3-D ultrasound approaches, called 3D multi-line transmit (MLT) and Multi-Plane-Transmit beamforming [22], [31]- [33], and showing convicting results, were not evaluated in this study.…”

Investigation on 3D high frame rate imaging with motion compensation (MoCo)

“…A third way to obtain high-framerate imaging is the multi-line transmit (MLT) approach, which combines several focused beams into a single image [3]. Both techniques have been extended in 3-D for multiple applications, such as vascular and cardiac imaging [4]- [6]. Synthetic aperture can be achieved with two different acquisition schemes.…”