Publications
262 results found
Toulemonde M, Stanziola A, Li Y, et al., 2017, Effects of motion on high frame rate contrast enhanced echocardiography and its correction, ISSN: 1948-5719
Contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) has shown great promise in quantifying myocardial perfusion and ventricular flow. More recently high frame-rate contrast enhanced echocardiography (HFR CE), based on pulse inversion (PI) and diverging waves, has shown to significantly improve the image contrast over standard CEUS [M. Toulemonde, IUS 2016]. Both contrast pulse sequences and spatial compounding involve coherent summation of echoes from a target at different time points. Consequently they are susceptible to target motion, and their effects are very different and it is not yet clear of their combined impact on compounded HFR CEUS PI images. Furthermore, there is no study to demonstrate motion corrected compounded HFR CEUS. The aim of this work is firstly to demonstrate the impact of the motion on compounded HFR CE in simulation and secondly to evaluate the motion correction algorithm in-vivo.
Papadopoulou V, Corbett R, Zhou X, et al., 2017, Notice of Removal: 3D flow velocity reconstruction in a human radial artery from measured 2D high-frame-rate plane wave contrast enhanced ultrasound in two scanning directions - A feasibility study, ISSN: 1948-5719
Hemodynamics play an important role in the development of cardiovascular disease, with atherosclerosis and intimal hyperplasia arising at sites with low wall shear stress and disturbed endoluminal mixing. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can study blood rheology, however performance relies on precise 3D anatomy and accurate blood flow measurements to seed the initial and boundary conditions. Recently, ultrasound (US) 2D high frame-rate (HFR) acquisitions using plane-wave (PW) imaging combined with contrast agent tracking have been used for US image velocimetry (UIV) to measure blood flow profiles (Leow CH, UMB 2015). Here we investigate the experimental feasibility of combining multiple 2D UIV acquired in two nonparallel scanning directions along a human brachial artery for estimating the 3D blood flow velocity profile.
Zhang G, Lin S, Leow CH, et al., 2017, Acoustic response of phase change contrast agents targeted with breast cancer cells immediately after ultrasonic activation using ultrafast imaging, ISSN: 1948-5719
Phase-change contrast agents (PCCAs) have advantageous properties in terms of smaller size, longer half-life and selective activation control compared to conventional microbubble contrast agents (MCAs), which make them ideal for ultrasound cancer imaging. [1] Acoustic signal from tumour site can be further enhanced by receptor targeted PCCAs. However there is still a lack of understanding of the behaviour of these targeted agents. In this work, we report the use of high frame rate (HFR) imaging to investigate the changes in acoustic signal of Folate Receptor (FR)-targeted versus control PCCAs with breast cancer cells immediately after acoustic activation.
Jeffries KC, Schirmer M, Brown J, et al., 2017, Notice of Removal: Automated super-resolution image processing in ultrasound using machine learning, ISSN: 1948-5719
Clinical implementation of super-resolution (SR) ultrasound imaging requires accurate single microbubble detection, and would benefit greatly from automation in order to minimize time requirements and user dependence. We present a machine learning based post-processing tool for the application of SR ultrasound imaging, where we utilize superpixelation and support vector machines (SVMs) for foreground detection and signal differentiation.
Toulemonde M, Eckersley RJ, Tang MX, 2017, High frame rate contrast enhanced echocardiography: Microbubbles stability and contrast evaluation, ISSN: 1948-5719
High frame-rate contrast enhanced echocardiography (HFR CE), based on pulse inversion (PI) and diverging wave transmission, was recently proposed for improving the image contrast over standard contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) with focused transmission [M. Toulemonde, IUS 2016]. While it has great potential for improved quantification of myocardium perfusion, it is not clear as whether the stability of microbubbles (MBs) is reduced under HFR ultrasound. Existing studies on MBs stability in HFR CEUS are limited to plane wave imaging at high clinical frequency (3.5 and 7.5 MHz) [O. Couture, 2012 - J. Viti, 2016] where commercial MBs' behaviour is very different from that at lower clinical ultrasound frequency used in cardiac imaging. The aim of this work is to investigate the MBs stability and the contrast improvement using HFR CE compared to CEUS transmission at an echocardiography relevant frequency for different mechanical indices (MIs).
Jeffries KC, Harput S, Brown J, et al., 2017, Notice of Removal: Microbubble localization errors in ultrasonic super-resolution imaging, ISSN: 1948-5719
Recently, acoustic super-resolution (SR) imaging has allowed visualization of microvascular structure and flow beyond the diffraction limit through the localization of many isolated microbubble signals. Each bubble position is typically estimated by calculating the centroid, finding a local maximum, or finding the peak of a 2-D Gaussian function fit. However, the backscattered signal from a microbubble depends not only on diffraction characteristics of the waveform, but also on the bubble behavior in the acoustic field, which if not accounted for, may cause localization errors.
Lin S, Shah A, Hernandez-Gil J, et al., 2017, Notice of Removal: Optically and acoustically triggerable sub-micron phase-change contrast agents for enhanced photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging, ISSN: 1948-5719
To explore the extravascular space, sub-micron phase-change droplets show widespread interest in medical imaging and therapy with various modalities, such as ultrasound and photoacoustic. Existing studies (Wilson 2012, Wei 2014) on such dual-modality contrast agents have demonstrated the generation of both optical and ultrasound contrast after optical activation. However these studies did not explore the option of acoustic activation. Furthermore, high boiling point perfluorocarbons were used in these studies. A low boiling point may be preferred, to minimise un-wanted bioeffects, especially when activating in deeper tissues. In this study, we demonstrate a versatile phase-change sub-micron contrast agent that can provide three modes of contrast enhancement: 1) photoacoustic imaging contrast, 2) ultrasound contrast with optical activation, and 3) ultrasound contrast with acoustic activation. This would add versatility of vaporisation triggering, offering new possibilities in dual mode imaging, molecular imaging and drug delivery.
Toulemonde M, Leow CH, Eckersley RJ, et al., 2017, Cardiac flow mapping using high frame-rate diverging wave contrast enhanced ultrasound and image tracking, ISSN: 1948-5719
High frame-rate (HFR) contrast enhanced echocardiography (CE), based on pulse inversion (PI), diverging wave transmission, was recently proposed for improving the image contrast over standard CE with focused transmission [M. Toulemonde, IUS 2016]. Comparing to ∼30Hz in standard CE, HFR CE can reach a frame rate of up to 6000Hz, allowing accurate tracking of fast flow structure and dynamics in cardiac chambers. A recent study shows the benefit of HFR cardiac imaging for flow vortex detection by using a Duplex mode (B-mode + Doppler) but without microbubble contrast agents, the signals from blood cells are weak [J. Faurie, UFFC, 2017]. Another clinical research shows the potential of visualising and tracking vortex with a CE at a frame rate of 204 ± 39 frames / s but the field of view is limited and the frame rate is still low for tracking the very fast cardiac flow [H. Abe, Cardiovascular Imaging, 2013]. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the feasibility of flow mapping using HFR CE in-vivo cardiac imaging.
Zhu J, Lin S, Harput S, et al., 2017, Notice of Removal: Exploring mild bubble disruption and high frame rate contrast enhanced ultrasound for specific imaging of lymphatic vessel, ISSN: 1948-5719
Contrast enhanced ultrasound imaging shows great potential for visualising lymphatic vessels and identifying sentinel lymph nodes. However current approaches still have artefacts reducing the lymphatic vessel contrast against background tissue [A. Sever, Clinical Radiology, 2012]. Pulse inversion (PI) detects nonlinear echoes from microbubbles but also from tissue due to nonlinear propagation of ultrasound [M.X. Tang, UMB, 2010]. Doppler acquisition has difficulties due to slow lymph flow rate. In this study, we propose mild bubble disruption imaging (MIDI) that utilises high frame-rate (HFR) plane wave transmission at modest MI to reduce nonlinear tissue artefact for lymphatic imaging with slow flow.
Leow CH, Braga M, Hernandez-Gil J, et al., 2017, Multi-frame rate plane wave contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging for tumour vascular imaging and perfusion quantification, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS, Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Angiogenesis and blood flow dynamics play an important role in the development of malignant tumours and their response to treatment. While contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging with microbubble contrast agents as a tool for imaging angiogenesis and flow dynamics has shown great potential [1], recent development of plane wave high frame-rate (HFR) CEUS has offered new opportunities in such applications. In this study, we demonstrate an interleaved multi-frame rate plane wave CEUS imaging to quantify perfusion and to image vascular structure with improved resolution and contrast.
Lin S, Zhang G, Leow CH, et al., 2017, High frame rate ultrasound imaging of vaporised sub-micron phase-change contrast agents, ISSN: 1948-5719
Contrast-enhanced high-frame-rate (HFR) ultrasound imaging offers enriched temporal information. As one of the most actively researched alternative contrast agent, the sub-micron phase-change contrast agent (PCCA) has shown attractive advantages in ultrasound imaging and therapy. Post-vaporisation of PCCAs has been optically evaluated (Reznik, 2013) and acoustically characterised (Reznik, 2011) with fluorinate-shelled PCCAs. In this study, for the first time, we employed HFR ultrasound to image the vaporised lipid-shelled PCCAs immediately after acoustic activation on a microvascular phantom with microscopic validation. This will provide an understanding of the stability and lifetime of vaporised PCCAs after activation in the context of HFR ultrasound imaging.
Jeffries K, Huang DY, Brown J, et al., 2017, Notice of Removal: Super-resolution ultrasound to aid testicular lesion characterisation, ISSN: 1948-5719
Changes in microvascular structure and flow is of clinical importance in the study of a number of disease processes such as cancer and diabetes. Ultrasound is often the primary imaging procedure performed to determine appropriate treatment or surgery for testicular lesions. Currently, however, differentiation and diagnosis of both benign and malignant testicular tumours such as seminomas, leydig cell tumours and lymphomas are often challenging. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) has been used to aid their characterisation [1]. There are, however, a variety of benign testicular lesions that can mimic testicular malignancies. Ultrasound super-resolution (US-SR) techniques have been able to visualise vascular structures in vitro and in vivo beyond the diffraction limit by localizing individual microbubble signals. In this work, we aim to apply US-SR processing to clinical data to aid diagnostic confidence.
Leow C, Tang M, 2017, Spatio-temporal Flow and Wall Shear Stress Mapping based on Incoherent Ensemble-correlation of Ultrafast Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound Images, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Vol: 44, Pages: 134-152, ISSN: 0301-5629
In this study, a technique for high-frame-rate ultrasound imaging velocimetry (UIV) is extended first to provide more robust quantitative flow velocity mapping using ensemble correlation of images without coherent compounding, and second to generate spatio-temporal wall shear stress (WSS) distribution. A simulation model, which couples the ultrasound simulator with analytical flow solution, was implemented to evaluate its accuracy. It is shown that the proposed approach can reduce errors in velocity estimation by up to 10-fold in comparison with the coherent correlation approach. Mean errors (ME) of 3.2% and 8.6% were estimated under a steady flow condition, while 3.0% and 10.6% were found under a pulsatile condition for the velocity and wall shear rate (WSR) measurement, respectively. Appropriate filter parameters were selected to constrain the velocity profiles before WSR estimations and the effects of incorrect wall tracking were quantified under a controlled environment. Although accurate wall tracking is found to be critical in WSR measurement (as a 200 µm deviation from the wall may yield up to a 60% error), this can be mitigated by HFR imaging (of up to 10 kHz) with contrast agents, which allow for improved differentiation of the wall-fluid boundaries. In vitro investigations on two carotid bifurcation phantoms, normal and diseased, were conducted, and their relative differences in terms of the flow patterns and WSR distribution were demonstrated. It is shown that high-frame-rate UIV technique can be a non-invasive tool to measure quantitatively the spatio-temporal velocity and WSS distribution.
Lin S, Zhang G, Jamburidze A, et al., 2017, High Frame Rate Ultrasound Imaging of Vaporised Phase Change Contrast Agents, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Zhang G, Lin S, Leow CH, et al., 2017, Acoustic Response of Targeted Nanodroplets Post-Activation using High Frame Rate Imaging, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Robins T, Leow CH, Chapuis G, et al., 2017, Dual Frequency Transcranial Ultrasound for Contrast Enhanced Ultrafast Brain Functional Imaging, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Zhu J, Lin S, Harput S, et al., 2017, High Frame Rate Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound Imaging of Lymphatic Vessel Phantom, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Li H, Chen R, Xu C, et al., 2017, Unveiling the development of intracranial injury using dynamic brain EIT: an evaluation of current reconstruction algorithms, PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT, Vol: 38, Pages: 1776-1790, ISSN: 0967-3334
Stride E, Mulvana H, Rademeyer P, et al., 2017, Characterisation of functionalised microbubbles for ultrasound imaging and therapy, The Micro-World Observed by Ultra High-Speed Cameras: We See What You Don't See, Pages: 375-389, ISBN: 9783319614908
Functionalised microbubbles have shown considerable potential both as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging and as a means of enhancing ultrasound mediated therapy. With the development of advanced techniques such as quantitative ultrasound imaging and targeted drug delivery, the accurate prediction of their response to ultrasound excitation is becoming increasingly important. Characterising microbubble behavior represents a considerable technical challenge on account of their small size (<10 μm diameter) and the ultrasound frequencies used to drive them in clinical applications (typically between 0.5 and 20 MHz). This chapter examines the three main techniques used for the characterization of microbubble dynamics: Ultra-high speed video microscopy, laser scattering and acoustic attenuation and back scattering measurements. The principles of the techniques are introduced with examples of their applications and their relative advantages and disadvantages are then discussed. In the second half of the chapter magnetically functionalized microbubbles are used as a case study and results obtained using each of the three techniques are presented and compared. The chapter concludes with recommendations for combining different methods for microbubble characterization.
Christensen-Jeffries K, Harput S, Brown J, et al., 2017, Microbubble Axial Localization Errors inUltrasound Super-Resolution Imaging, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, Vol: 64, Pages: 1644-1654, ISSN: 0885-3010
Acoustic super-resolution imaging has allowed visualization of microvascular structure and flow beyond the diffraction limit using standard clinical ultrasound systems through the localization of many spatially isolated microbubble signals. The determination of each microbubble position is typically performed by calculating the centroid, finding a local maximum, or finding the peak of a 2-D Gaussian function fit to the signal. However, the backscattered signal from a microbubble depends not only on diffraction characteristics of the waveform, but also on the microbubble behavior in the acoustic field. Here, we propose a new axial localization method by identifying the onset of the backscattered signal. We compare the accuracy of localization methods using in vitro experiments performed at 7 cm depth and 2.3 MHz center frequency. We corroborate these findings with simulated results based on the Marmottant model. We show experimentally and in simulations that detecting the onset of the returning signal provides considerably increased accuracy for super-resolution. Resulting experimental cross-sectional profiles in super-resolution images demonstrate at least 5.8 times improvement in contrast ratio and more than 1.8 reduction in spatial spread (provided by 90% of the localizations) for the onset method over centroiding, peak detection and 2D Gaussian fitting methods. Simulations estimate that these latter methods could create errors in relative bubble positions as high as 900 μ m at these experimental settings, while the onset method reduced the interquartile range of these errors by a factor of over 2.2. Detecting the signal onset is therefore expected to considerably improve the accuracy of super-resolution.
Bamber J, Eckersley R, Harvey C, et al., 2017, David Cosgrove., BMJ, Vol: 358, Pages: j3854-j3854
Lin S, Zhang G, Leow CH, et al., 2017, Effects of microchannel confinement on acoustic vaporisation of ultrasound phase change contrast agents, PHYSICS IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY, Vol: 62, Pages: 6884-6898, ISSN: 0031-9155
The sub-micron phase change contrast agent (PCCA) composed of a perfluorocarbon liquid core can be activated into gaseous state and form stable echogenic microbubbles for contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging. It has shown great promise in imaging microvasculature, tumour microenvironment, and cancer cells. Although PCCAs have been extensively studied for different diagnostic and therapeutic applications, the effect of biologically geometrical confinement on the acoustic vaporisation of PCCAs is still not clear. We have investigated the difference in PCCA-produced ultrasound contrast enhancement after acoustic activation with and without a microvessel confinement on a microchannel phantom. The experimental results indicated more than one-order of magnitude less acoustic vaporisation in a microchannel than that in a free environment taking into account the attenuation effect of the vessel on the microbubble scattering. This may provide an improved understanding in the applications of PCCAs in vivo.
Christensen-Jeffries K, Brown J, Aljabar P, et al., 2017, 3-D In Vitro Acoustic Super-Resolution andSuper-Resolved Velocity Mapping UsingMicrobubbles, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, Vol: 64, Pages: 1478-1486, ISSN: 0885-3010
Standard clinical ultrasound (US) imaging frequencies are unable to resolve microvascular structures due to the fundamental diffraction limit of US waves. Recent demonstrations of 2D super-resolution both in vitro and in vivo have demonstrated that fine vascular structures can be visualized using acoustic single bubble localization. Visualization of more complex and disordered 3D vasculature, such as that of a tumor, requires an acquisition strategy which can additionally localize bubbles in the elevational plane with high precision in order to generate super-resolution in all three dimensions. Furthermore, a particular challenge lies in the need to provide this level of visualization with minimal acquisition time. In this work, we develop a fast, coherent US imaging tool for microbubble localization in 3D using a pair of US transducers positioned at 90°. This allowed detection of point scatterer signals in 3 dimensions with average precisions equal to 1.9 µm in axial and elevational planes, and 11 µm in the lateral plane, compared to the diffraction limited point spread function full widths at half maximum of 488 µm, 1188 µm and 953 µm of the original imaging system with a single transducer. Visualization and velocity mapping of 3D in vitro structures was demonstrated far beyond the diffraction limit. The capability to measure the complete flow pattern of blood vessels associated with disease at depth would ultimately enable analysis of in vivo microvascular morphology, blood flow dynamics and occlusions resulting from disease states.
Cheung WK, Williams KJ, Christensen-Jeffries K, et al., 2017, A temporal and spatial analysis approach to automated segmentation of microbubble signals in contrast-enhanced ultrasound images: application to quantification of active vascular density in human lower limbs, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Vol: 43, Pages: 2221-2234, ISSN: 0301-5629
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) using microbubble contrast agents has shown great promise in visualising and quantifying active vascular density. Most existing approaches for vascular density quantification using CEUS are calculated based on image intensity and are susceptible to confounding factors and imaging artefact. Poor reproducibility is a key challenge to clinical translation. In this study, a new automated temporal and spatial signal analysis approach is developed for reproducible microbubble segmentation and quantification of contrast enhancement in human lower limbs. The approach is evaluated in vitro on phantoms and in vivo in lower limbs of healthy volunteers before and after physical exercise. In this approach, vascular density is quantified based on the relative areas microbubbles occupy instead of their image intensity. Temporal features of the CEUS image sequences are used to identify pixels that contain microbubble signals. A microbubble track density (MTD) measure, the ratio of the segmented microbubble area to the whole tissue area, is calculated as a surrogate for active capillary density. In vitro results reveal a good correlation (r(2) = 0.89) between the calculated MTD measure and the known bubble concentration. For in vivo results, a significant increase (129% in average) in the MTD measure is found in lower limbs of healthy volunteers after exercise, with excellent repeatability over a series of days (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.96). This compares to the existing state-of-the-art approach of destruction and replenishment analysis on the same patients (intra-class correlation coefficient ≤0.78). The proposed new approach shows great potential as an accurate and highly reproducible clinical tool for quantification of active vascular density.
Li Y, Chahal N, Senior R, et al., 2017, Reproducible computer assisted quantification of myocardial perfusion with contrast enhanced ultrasound, Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology, Vol: 43, Pages: 2235-2246, ISSN: 1879-291X
Myocardial perfusion can be quantified by myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) and is used for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, existing MCE quantification software is highly operator dependent and has poor reproducibility and ease of usage. The aim of this study was to develop robust and easy-to-use software that can perform MCE quantification accurately, reproducibly and rapidly. The developed software has the following features: (i) semi-automatic segmentation of the myocardium; (ii) automatic rejection of MCE data with poor image quality; (iii) automatic computation of perfusion parameters such as myocardial blood flow (MBF). MCE sequences of 18 individuals (9 normal, 9 with CAD) undergoing vasodilator stress with dipyridamole were analysed quantitatively using the software. When evaluated against coronary angiography, the software achieved a sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 91% for hyperemic MBF. With the automatic rejection algorithm, the sensitivity and specificity further improved to 77% and 94%, respectively. For MBF reproducibility, the percentage agreement is 85% (κ = 0.65) for inter-observer variability and 88% (κ = 0.72) for intra-observer variability. The intra-class correlation coefficients are 0.94 (inter-observer) and 0.96 (intra-observer). The time taken to analyse one MCE sequence using the software is about 3 min on a PC. The software has exhibited good diagnostic performance and reproducibility for CAD detection and is rapid and user-friendly.
Lin S, Shah A, Hernández-Gil J, et al., 2017, Optically and acoustically triggerable sub-micron phase-change contrast agents for enhanced photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging, Photoacoustics, Vol: 6, Pages: 26-36, ISSN: 2213-5979
We demonstrate a versatile phase-change sub-micron contrast agent providing three modes of contrast enhancement: 1) photoacoustic imaging contrast, 2) ultrasound contrast with optical activation, and 3) ultrasound contrast with acoustic activation. This agent, which we name 'Cy-droplet', has the following novel features. It comprises a highly volatile perfluorocarbon for easy versatile activation, and a near-infrared optically absorbing dye chosen to absorb light at a wavelength with good tissue penetration. It is manufactured via a 'microbubble condensation' method. The phase-transition of Cy-droplets can be optically triggered by pulsed-laser illumination, inducing photoacoustic signal and forming stable gas bubbles that are visible with echo-ultrasound in situ. Alternatively, Cy-droplets can be converted to microbubble contrast agents upon acoustic activation with clinical ultrasound. Potentially all modes offer extravascular contrast enhancement because of the sub-micron initial size. Such versatility of acoustic and optical 'triggerability' can potentially improve multi-modality imaging, molecularly targeted imaging and controlled drug release.
Fraser KH, Poelma C, Zhou B, et al., 2017, Ultrasound imaging velocimetry with interleaved images for improved pulsatile arterial flow measurements: a new correction method, experimental and in vivo validation, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Vol: 14, ISSN: 1742-5662
Blood velocity measurements are important in physiological science and clinical diagnosis. Doppler ultrasound is the most commonly used method but can only measure one velocity component. Ultrasound imaging velocimetry (UIV) is a promising technique capable of measuring two velocity components; however, there is a limit on the maximum velocity that can be measured with conventional hardware which results from the way images are acquired by sweeping the ultrasound beam across the field of view. Interleaved UIV is an extension of UIV in which two image frames are acquired concurrently, allowing the effective interframe separation time to be reduced and therefore increasing the maximum velocity that can be measured. The sweeping of the ultrasound beam across the image results in a systematic error which must be corrected: in this work, we derived and implemented a new velocity correction method which accounts for acceleration of the scatterers. We then, for the first time, assessed the performance of interleaved UIV for measuring pulsatile arterial velocities by measuring flows in phantoms and in vivo and comparing the results with spectral Doppler ultrasound and transit-time flow probe data. The velocity and flow rate in the phantom agreed within 5–10% of peak velocity, and 2–9% of peak flow, respectively, and in vivo the velocity difference was 9% of peak velocity. The maximum velocity measured was 1.8 m s−1, the highest velocity reported with UIV. This will allow flows in diseased arteries to be investigated and so has the potential to increase diagnostic accuracy and enable new vascular research.
Cheung WK, Shah BN, Stanziola A, et al., 2017, DIFFERENTIAL INTENSITY PROJECTION FOR VISUALISATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF PLAQUE NEOVASCULARISATION IN CONTRAST-ENHANCED ULTRASOUND IMAGES OF CAROTID ARTERIES, ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY, Vol: 43, Pages: 831-837, ISSN: 0301-5629
Mulvana H, Browning RJ, Luan Y, et al., 2017, Characterisation of Contrast Agent Microbubbles for Ultrasound Imaging and Therapy Research., IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control
The high efficiency with which gas microbubbles can scatter ultrasound compared to the surrounding blood pool or tissues has led to their widespread employment as contrast agents in ultrasound imaging. In recent years their applications have been extended to include super-resolution imaging and the stimulation of localized bio-effects for therapy. The growing exploitation of contrast agents in ultrasound, and in particular these recent developments, have amplified the need to characterize and fully understand microbubble behavior. The aim in doing so is to more fully exploit their utility for both diagnostic imaging and potential future therapeutic applications.
Mulvana H, Browning RJ, Luan Y, et al., 2017, Characterization of Contrast Agent Microbubbles for Ultrasound Imaging and Therapy Research, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS FERROELECTRICS AND FREQUENCY CONTROL, Vol: 64, Pages: 232-251, ISSN: 0885-3010
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.