TY - JOUR
T1 - Morphological Reconstruction Improves Microvessel Mapping in Super-Resolution Ultrasound
AU - Schoen, Scott
AU - Zhao, Zhigen
AU - Alva, Ashley
AU - Huang, Chengwu
AU - Chen, Shigao
AU - Arvanitis, Costas
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received October 14, 2020; accepted February 1, 2021. Date of publication February 5, 2021; date of current version May 25, 2021. This work was supported by NIH under Grant R00EB016971 (NIBIB) and Grant R37CA239039 (NCI). (Corresponding author: Scott Schoen.) Scott Schoen, Jr., and Zhigen Zhao are with the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA (e-mail: scottschoenjr. . ech.edu; Zhigen.zhao. . ech.edu).
Publisher Copyright:
© 1986-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Generation of super-resolution (SR) ultrasound (US) images, created from the successive localization of individual microbubbles in the circulation, has enabled the visualization of microvascular structure and flow at a level of detail that was not possible previously. Despite rapid progress, tradeoffs between spatial and temporal resolution may challenge the translation of this promising technology to the clinic. To temper these tradeoffs, we propose a method based on morphological image reconstruction. This method can extract from ultrafast contrast-enhanced US (CEUS) images hundreds of microbubble peaks per image (312-by-180 pixels) with intensity values varying by an order of magnitude. Specifically, it offers a fourfold increase in the number of peaks detected per frame, requires on the order of 100 ms for processing, and is robust to additive electronic noise (down to 3.6-dB CNR in CEUS images). By integrating this method to an SR framework, we demonstrate a sixfold improvement in spatial resolution, when compared with CEUS, in imaging chicken embryo microvessels. This method that is computationally efficient and, thus, scalable to large data sets may augment the abilities of SR-US in imaging microvascular structure and function.
AB - Generation of super-resolution (SR) ultrasound (US) images, created from the successive localization of individual microbubbles in the circulation, has enabled the visualization of microvascular structure and flow at a level of detail that was not possible previously. Despite rapid progress, tradeoffs between spatial and temporal resolution may challenge the translation of this promising technology to the clinic. To temper these tradeoffs, we propose a method based on morphological image reconstruction. This method can extract from ultrafast contrast-enhanced US (CEUS) images hundreds of microbubble peaks per image (312-by-180 pixels) with intensity values varying by an order of magnitude. Specifically, it offers a fourfold increase in the number of peaks detected per frame, requires on the order of 100 ms for processing, and is robust to additive electronic noise (down to 3.6-dB CNR in CEUS images). By integrating this method to an SR framework, we demonstrate a sixfold improvement in spatial resolution, when compared with CEUS, in imaging chicken embryo microvessels. This method that is computationally efficient and, thus, scalable to large data sets may augment the abilities of SR-US in imaging microvascular structure and function.
KW - Acoustic cavitation
KW - super-resolution (SR)
KW - ultrasound (US) imaging
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U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2021.3057540
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2021.3057540
M3 - Article
C2 - 33544672
AN - SCOPUS:85101462343
VL - 68
SP - 2141
EP - 2149
JO - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
JF - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
SN - 0885-3010
IS - 6
M1 - 9349103
ER -