Three-dimensional Super-Resolution Ultrasound Microvessel Imaging with Bipartite Graph-based Microbubble Tracking using a Verasonics 256-channel Ultrasound System

U. Wai Lok, Chengwu Huang, Shanshan Tang, Ping Gong, Fabrice Lucien, Yohan Kim, Pengfei Song, Shigao Chen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3-D) super-resolution ultrasound microvessel imaging (SR-UMI) has been recently proposed to visualize 3-D microvasculature by overcoming the diffraction limited resolution in three spatial dimensions. However, 3-D SR-UMI suffers from high system complexity and sophisticated microbubble tracking mechanisms to account for 3D movement. To reduce the system complexity, methods such as row-column matrix, sparse array and micro-beamforming have been proposed to reduce the number of transmit/receive channel at the cost of degradation of image quality. In this study, a sub-aperture process is used to reduce the required received channel counts at the cost of slightly reducing the overall frame rate. For the microbubble tracking, two dimensional (2-D) bipartite graph-based tracking has been proposed to improve microbubble tracking performance for 2-D SR-UMI. This approach can reduce the background noise, improve the performance of super-resolution image, and stabilize the estimated micro-vessel flow speed. We extended the 2-D bipartite graph-based method to 3-D SR-UMI to reduce background noise and to improve the micro-bubble tracking performance. In this study, a flow channel phantom was used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Results showed that the proposed method can effectively improve the spatial resolution as compared with 3-D Power Doppler images.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2019 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS 2019
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages1111-1113
Number of pages3
ISBN (Electronic)9781728145969
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2019
Event2019 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS 2019 - Glasgow, United Kingdom
Duration: Oct 6 2019Oct 9 2019

Publication series

NameIEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS
Volume2019-October
ISSN (Print)1948-5719
ISSN (Electronic)1948-5727

Conference

Conference2019 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityGlasgow
Period10/6/1910/9/19

Keywords

  • 3-D bipartite graph-based method
  • Super-resolution ultrasound microvessel imaging
  • compensation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Acoustics and Ultrasonics

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