Publications
254 results found
Robins TC, Cueto C, Cudeiro J, et al., 2023, Dual-Probe Transcranial Full-Waveform Inversion: A Brain Phantom Feasibility Study., Ultrasound Med Biol, Vol: 49, Pages: 2302-2315
OBJECTIVE: Despite being a low-cost, portable and safe medical imaging technique, transcranial ultrasound imaging is not used widely in adults because of the severe degradation and distortion of signals caused by the skull. Full-waveform inversion (FWI) has recently been found to have potential as an effective method for transcranial ultrasound tomography to obtain high-quality, subwavelength-resolution acoustic models of the brain using low-frequency ultrasound data. In this study is the first demonstration of this method in recovering a high-resolution 2-D reconstruction of a brain and skull ultrasound imaging phantom using experimentally acquired data. METHODS: A 2:5 scale brain phantom encased within a 3-D-printed skull-mimicking layer was created to simulate a clinical transcranial imaging target. To obtain tomographic ultrasound data on the brain and skull phantom, a tomographic ultrasound acquisition system was designed and implemented using commercially available low-frequency cardiac probes. FWI reconstructions of the brain and skull phantom were performed using the acquired tomographic data and were compared with corresponding synthetic reconstructions. This comparison was used to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed imaging system when employing different transducer array configurations. RESULTS: We demonstrate the successful FWI reconstruction of the brain phantom within the skull mimic from experimentally acquired tomographic ultrasound data. To mitigate the effects of the skull-mimicking material, a reflection-matching algorithm was applied to model the morphology of the skull layer prior to performing the inversion. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study provide a promising step toward the clinical use of FWI for transcranial ultrasound imaging in adults.
Cueto C, Bates O, Strong G, et al., 2023, Corrigendum to Stride: A flexible software platform for high-performance ultrasound computed tomography Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 221 (2022) 106855., Comput Methods Programs Biomed, Vol: 240
Yan J, Wang B, Riemer K, et al., 2023, Fast 3D super-resolution ultrasound with adaptive weight-based beamforming, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol: 70, Pages: 2752-2761, ISSN: 0018-9294
Objective: Super-resolution ultrasound (SRUS) imaging through localising and tracking sparse microbubbles has been shown to reveal microvascular structure and flow beyond the wave diffraction limit. Most SRUS studies use standard delay and sum (DAS) beamforming, where high side lobes and broad main lobes make isolation and localisation of densely distributed bubbles challenging, particularly in 3D due to the typically small aperture of matrix array probes. Method: This study aimed to improve 3D SRUS by implementing a new fast 3D coherence beamformer based on channel signal variance. Two additional fast coherence beamformers, that have been implemented in 2D were implemented in 3D for the first time as comparison: a nonlinear beamformer with p-th root compression and a coherence factor beamformer. The 3D coherence beamformers, together with DAS, were compared in computer simulation, on a microflow phantom and in vivo. Results: Simulation results demonstrated that all three adaptive weight-based beamformers can narrow the main lobe suppress the side lobes, while maintaining the weaker scatter signals. Improved 3D SRUS images of microflow phantom and a rabbit kidney within a 3-second acquisition were obtained using the adaptive weight-based beamformers, when compared with DAS. Conclusion: The adaptive weight-based 3D beamformers can improve the SRUS and the proposed variance-based beamformer performs best in simulations and experiments. Significance: Fast 3D SRUS would significantly enhance the potential utility of this emerging imaging modality in a broad range of biomedical applications.
Grandi Sgambato B, Hasbani M, Barsakcioglu D, et al., 2023, High performance wearable ultrasound as a human-machine interface for wrist and hand kinematic tracking, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Pages: 1-10, ISSN: 0018-9294
Objective: Non-invasive human machine interfaces (HMIs) have high potential in medical, entertainment, and industrial applications. Traditionally, surface electromyography (sEMG) has been used to track muscular activity and infer motor intention. Ultrasound (US) has received increasing attention as an alternative to sEMG-based HMIs. Here, we developed a portable US armband system with 24 channels and a multiple receiver approach, and compared it with existing sEMG- and US-based HMIs on movement intention decoding. Methods: US and motion capture data was recorded while participants performed wrist and hand movements of four degrees of freedom (DoFs) and their combinations. A linear regression model was used to offline predict hand kinematics from the US (or sEMG, for comparison) features. The method was further validated in real-time for a 3-DoF target reaching task. Results: In the offline analysis, the wearable US system achieved an average R2 of 0.94 in the prediction of four DoFs of the wrist and hand while sEMG reached a performance of R2=0.06 . In online control, the participants achieved an average 93% completion rate of the targets. Conclusion: When tailored for HMIs, the proposed US A-mode system and processing pipeline can successfully regress hand kinematics both in offline and online settings with performances comparable or superior to previously published interfaces. Significance: Wearable US technology may provide a new generation of HMIs that use muscular deformation to estimate limb movements. The wearable US system allowed for robust proportional and simultaneous control over multiple DoFs in both offline and online settings.
Jiang Z, Cudeiro-Blanco J, Yildiz BI, et al., 2023, An Ultrasound Array of Emitter-receiver Stacks for Microbubble-based Therapy., IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, Vol: PP
Most therapeutic ultrasound devices place emitters and receivers in separate locations, so that the long therapeutic pulses (>1ms) can be emitted while receivers monitor the procedure. However, with such placement, emitters and receivers are competing for the same space, producing a trade-off between emission efficiency and reception sensitivity. Taking advantage of recent studies demonstrating that short-pulse ultrasound can be used therapeutically, we aimed to develop a device that overcomes such trade-offs. The array was composed of emitter-receiver stacks, which enabled both emission and reception from the same location. Each element was made of a lead zirconate titanate (PZT)-polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) stack. The PZT (frequency: 500 kHz, diameter: 16 mm) was used for emission and the PVDF (thickness: 28 μm, diameter: 16 mm) for broadband reception. 32 elements were assembled in a 3D-printed dome-shaped frame (focal length: 150 mm; f-number: 1) and was tested in free-field and through an ex-vivo human skull. In free-field, the array had a 4.5×4.5×32 mm focus and produced a peak-negative pressure (PNP) of 2.12 MPa at its geometric center. The electronic steering range was ±15 mm laterally and larger than ±15 mm axially. Through the skull, the array produced a PNP of 0.63 MPa. The PVDF elements were able to localize broadband microbubble emissions across the skull. We built the first multi-element array for short-pulse and microbubble-based therapeutic applications. Stacked arrays overcome traditional trade-offs between the transmission and reception quality and have the potential to create a step change in treatment safety and efficacy.
Nie L, Toulemonde M, Tang MX, et al., 2023, A human ear-inspired ultrasonic transducer (HEUT) for 3D localization of sub-wavelength scatterers, Applied Physics Letters, Vol: 123, ISSN: 0003-6951
The proposed technology aims to enable 3D localization of scatterers using single element ultrasonic transducers, which are traditionally limited to 1D measurements. This is achieved by designing a bespoke acoustic lens with a spiral-shaped pattern similar to the human outer ear, a shape that has evolved for sound source localization. This lens breaks the surface symmetry of the transducer, allowing ultrasonic waves arriving from different directions to be encoded in a certain way that can later be decoded to extract directional information. By employing the mechanism of spatial-encoding of the received signals and decoding via signal processing, the location of sub-wavelength scatterers can be detected in 3D with a single measurement for sparsely distributed scatterers. The proposed technology is first verified through a simulation study, and then 3D printed acoustic lenses are used to demonstrate the 3D encoding functionality of the Human Ear-inspired Ultrasonic Transducer (HEUT) experimentally. A framework is created to localize scatterers in 3D by processing received signals acquired by a HEUT prototype. With this technology, a single transducer can obtain multi-dimensional information with a single pulse-echo measurement, reducing the number of elements required for performing 3D ultrasound localization. The proposed spatial-encoding and -decoding technology can be applied to other wave-based imaging methods to develop affordable, practical, and compact sensing devices.
Seligman H, Patel SB, Alloula A, et al., 2023, Development of artificial intelligence tools for invasive Doppler-based coronary microvascular assessment., Eur Heart J Digit Health, Vol: 4, Pages: 291-301
AIMS: Coronary flow reserve (CFR) assessment has proven clinical utility, but Doppler-based methods are sensitive to noise and operator bias, limiting their clinical applicability. The objective of the study is to expand the adoption of invasive Doppler CFR, through the development of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to automatically quantify coronary Doppler quality and track flow velocity. METHODS AND RESULTS: A neural network was trained on images extracted from coronary Doppler flow recordings to score signal quality and derive values for coronary flow velocity and CFR. The outputs were independently validated against expert consensus. Artificial intelligence successfully quantified Doppler signal quality, with high agreement with expert consensus (Spearman's rho: 0.94), and within individual experts. Artificial intelligence automatically tracked flow velocity with superior numerical agreement against experts, when compared with the current console algorithm [AI flow vs. expert flow bias -1.68 cm/s, 95% confidence interval (CI) -2.13 to -1.23 cm/s, P < 0.001 with limits of agreement (LOA) -4.03 to 0.68 cm/s; console flow vs. expert flow bias -2.63 cm/s, 95% CI -3.74 to -1.52, P < 0.001, 95% LOA -8.45 to -3.19 cm/s]. Artificial intelligence yielded more precise CFR values [median absolute difference (MAD) against expert CFR: 4.0% for AI and 7.4% for console]. Artificial intelligence tracked lower-quality Doppler signals with lower variability (MAD against expert CFR 8.3% for AI and 16.7% for console). CONCLUSION: An AI-based system, trained by experts and independently validated, could assign a quality score to Doppler traces and derive coronary flow velocity and CFR. By making Doppler CFR more automated, precise, and operator-independent, AI could expand the clinical applicability of coronary microvascular assessment.
Zhou X, Li Y, Zhu Q, et al., 2023, A theragnostic HIFU transducer and system for inherently registered imaging and therapy., IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, Vol: PP
OBJECTIVE: One big challenge with high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is the difficulty in accurate prediction of focal location due to the complex wave propagation in heterogeneous medium even with imaging guidance. This study aims to overcome this by combining therapy and imaging guidance with one single HIFU transducer using the vibro-acoustography (VA) strategy. METHODS: Based on the VA imaging method, a HIFU transducer consisting of 8 transmitting elements was proposed for therapy planning, treatment and evaluation. Inherent registration between the therapy and imaging created unique spatial consistence in HIFU transducer's focal region in the above three procedures. Performance of this imaging modality was first evaluated through in-vitro phantoms. In-vitro and ex-vivo experiments were then designed to demonstrate the proposed dual-mode system's ability in conducting accurate thermal ablation. RESULTS: Point spread function of the HIFU-converted imaging system had a full wave half maximum of about 1.2 mm in both directions at a transmitting frequency of 1.2 MHz, which outperformed the conventional ultrasound imaging (3.15 MHz) in in-vitro situation. Image contrast was also tested on the in-vitro phantom. Various geometric patterns could be accurately 'burned out' on the testing objects by the proposed system both in vitro and ex vivo. CONCLUSION: Implementation of imaging and therapy with one HIFU transducer in this manner is feasible and it has potential as a novel strategy for addressing the long-standing problem in the HIFU therapy, possibly pushing this non-invasive technique forward towards wider clinical applications.
Kawara S, Cunningham B, Bezer J, et al., 2023, Capillary-Scale Hydrogel Microchannel Networks by Wire Templating., Small
Microvascular networks are essential for the efficient transport of nutrients, waste products, and drugs throughout the body. Wire-templating is an accessible method for generating laboratory models of these blood vessel networks, but it has difficulty fabricating microchannels with diameters of ten microns and narrower, a requirement for modeling human capillaries. This study describes a suite of surface modification techniques to selectively control the interactions amongst wires, hydrogels, and world-to-chip interfaces. This wire templating method enables the fabrication of perfusable hydrogel-based rounded cross-section capillary-scale networks whose diameters controllably narrow at bifurcations down to 6.1 ± 0.3 microns in diameter. Due to its low cost, accessibility, and compatibility with a wide range of common hydrogels of tunable stiffnesses such as collagen, this technique may increase the fidelity of experimental models of capillary networks for the study of human health and disease.
Riemer K, Toulemonde M, Yan J, et al., 2023, Fast and selective super-resolution ultrasound in vivo with acoustically activated nanodroplets, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Vol: 42, Pages: 1056-1067, ISSN: 0278-0062
Perfusion by the microcirculation is key to the development, maintenance and pathology of tissue. Its measurement with high spatiotemporal resolution is consequently valuable but remains a challenge in deep tissue. Ultrasound Localization Microscopy (ULM) provides very high spatiotemporal resolution but the use of microbubbles requires low contrast agent concentrations, a long acquisition time, and gives little control over the spatial and temporal distribution of the microbubbles. The present study is the first to demonstrate Acoustic Wave Sparsely-Activated Localization Microscopy (AWSALM) and fast-AWSALM for in vivo super-resolution ultrasound imaging, offering contrast on demand and vascular selectivity. Three different formulations of acoustically activatable contrast agents were used. We demonstrate their use with ultrasound mechanical indices well within recommended safety limits to enable fast on-demand sparse activation and destruction at very high agent concentrations. We produce super-localization maps of the rabbit renal vasculature with acquisition times between 5.5 s and 0.25 s, and a 4-fold improvement in spatial resolution. We present the unique selectivity of AWSALM in visualizing specific vascular branches and downstream microvasculature, and we show super-localized kidney structures in systole (0.25 s) and diastole (0.25 s) with fast-AWSALM outdoing microbubble based ULM. In conclusion, we demonstrate the feasibility of fast and selective measurement of microvascular dynamics in vivo with subwavelength resolution using ultrasound and acoustically activatable nanodroplet contrast agents.
Rowland EM, Riemer KA, Lichtenstein KEVIN, et al., 2022, NON-INVASIVE ASSESSMENT BY B-MODE ULTRASOUND OF ARTERIAL PULSE WAVE INTENSITY AND ITS REDUCTION DURING VENTRICULAR DYSFUNCTION, ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY, Vol: 49, Pages: 473-488, ISSN: 0301-5629
Tang M, 2022, Super-resolution ultrasound localization microscopy of microvascular structure and flow for distinguishing metastatic lymph nodes – an initial human study, Ultraschall in der Medizin, Vol: 43, Pages: 592-598, ISSN: 0172-4614
Purpose Detecting and distinguishing metastatic lymph nodes (LNs) from those with benign lymphadenopathy are crucial for cancer diagnosis and prognosis but remain a clinical challenge. A recent advance in super-resolution ultrasound (SRUS) through localizing individual microbubbles has broken the diffraction limit and tracking enabled in vivo noninvasive imaging of vascular morphology and flow dynamics at a microscopic level. In this study we hypothesize that SRUS enables quantitative markers to distinguish metastatic LNs from benign ones in patients with lymphadenopathy.Materials and Methods Clinical contrast-enhanced ultrasound image sequences of LNs from 6 patients with lymph node metastasis and 4 with benign lymphadenopathy were acquired and motion-corrected. These were then used to generate super-resolution microvascular images and super-resolved velocity maps. From these SRUS images, morphological and functional measures were obtained including micro-vessel density, fractal dimension, mean flow speed, and Local Flow Direction Irregularity (LFDI) measuring the variance in local flow direction. These measures were compared between pathologically proven reactive and metastasis LNs.Results Our initial results indicate that the difference in the indicator of flow irregularity (LFDI) derived from the SRUS images is statistically significant between the two groups. The LFDI is 60% higher in metastatic LNs compared with reactive nodes.Conclusion This pilot study demonstrates the feasibility of super-resolution ultrasound for clinical imaging of lymph nodes and the potential of using the irregularity of local blood flow directions afforded by SRUS for the characterization of LNs.
Lubel E, Sgambato BG, Barsakcioglu DY, et al., 2022, Kinematics of individual muscle units in natural contractions measured in vivo using ultrafast ultrasound, JOURNAL OF NEURAL ENGINEERING, Vol: 19, ISSN: 1741-2560
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Cudeiro-blanco J, Cueto C, Bates O, et al., 2022, DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LOW-FREQUENCY ULTRASOUND ACQUISITION DEVICE FOR 2-D BRAIN IMAGING USING FULL-WAVEFORM INVERSION, ULTRASOUND IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY, Vol: 48, Pages: 1995-2008, ISSN: 0301-5629
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Yan J, Zhang T, Broughton-Venner J, et al., 2022, Super-resolution ultrasound through sparsity-based deconvolution and multi-feature tracking, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Vol: 41, Pages: 1938-1947, ISSN: 0278-0062
Ultrasound super-resolution imaging through localisation and tracking of microbubbles can achieve sub-wave-diffraction resolution in mapping both micro-vascular structure and flow dynamics in deep tissue in vivo. Currently, it is still challenging to achieve high accuracy in localisation and tracking particularly with limited imaging frame rates and in the presence of high bubble concentrations. This study introduces microbubble image features into a Kalman tracking framework, and makes the framework compatible with sparsity-based deconvolution to address these key challenges. The performance of the method is evaluated on both simulations using individual bubble signals segmented from in vivo data and experiments on a mouse brain and a human lymph node. The simulation results show that the deconvolution not only significantly improves the accuracy of isolating overlapping bubbles, but also preserves some image features of the bubbles. The combination of such features with Kalman motion model can achieve a significant improvement in tracking precision at a low frame rate over that using the distance measure, while the improvement is not significant at the highest frame rate. The in vivo results show that the proposed framework generates SR images that are significantly different from the current methods with visual improvement, and is more robust to high bubble concentrations and low frame rates.
Hirata S, Hagihara Y, Yoshida K, et al., 2022, Evaluation of contrast enhancement ultrasound images of Sonazoid microbubbles in tissue-mimicking phantom obtained by optimal Golay pulse compression, JAPANESE JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, Vol: 61, ISSN: 0021-4922
Cueto C, Bates O, Strong G, et al., 2022, Stride: a flexible software platform for high-performance ultrasound computed tomography, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Vol: 221, ISSN: 0169-2607
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Advanced ultrasound computed tomography techniques like full-waveform inversion are mathematically complex and orders of magnitude more computationally expensive than conventional ultrasound imaging methods. This computational and algorithmic complexity, and a lack of open-source libraries in this field, represent a barrier preventing the generalised adoption of these techniques, slowing the pace of research, and hindering reproducibility. Consequently, we have developed Stride, an open-source Python library for the solution of large-scale ultrasound tomography problems. METHODS: On one hand, Stride provides high-level interfaces and tools for expressing the types of optimisation problems encountered in medical ultrasound tomography. On the other, these high-level abstractions seamlessly integrate with high-performance wave-equation solvers and with scalable parallelisation routines. The wave-equation solvers are generated automatically using Devito, a domain-specific language, and the parallelisation routines are provided through the custom actor-based library Mosaic. RESULTS: We demonstrate the modelling accuracy achieved by our wave-equation solvers through a comparison (1) with analytical solutions for a homogeneous medium, and (2) with state-of-the-art modelling software applied to a high-contrast, complex skull section. Additionally, we show through a series of examples how Stride can handle realistic numerical and experimental tomographic problems, in 2D and 3D, and how it can scale robustly from a local multi-processing environment to a multi-node high-performance cluster. CONCLUSIONS: Stride enables researchers to rapidly and intuitively develop new imaging algorithms and to explore novel physics without sacrificing performance and scalability. This will lead to faster scientific progress in this field and will significantly ease clinical translation.
Zhou X, Wang Y, Li Y, et al., 2022, Acoustic Beam Mapping for Guiding HIFU Therapy In Vivo Using Sub-Therapeutic Sound Pulse and Passive Beamforming, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, Vol: 69, Pages: 1663-1673, ISSN: 0018-9294
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Bates O, Guasch L, Strong G, et al., 2022, A probabilistic approach to tomography and adjoint state methods, with an application to full waveform inversion in medical ultrasound, INVERSE PROBLEMS, Vol: 38, ISSN: 0266-5611
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Weinberg P, Riemer K, Rowland E, et al., 2022, Contrast agent free assessment of blood flow and wall shear stress in the rabbit aorta using ultrasound image velocimetry, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Vol: 48, Pages: 437-449, ISSN: 0301-5629
Blood flow velocity and wall shear stress (WSS) influence and are influencedby vascular disease. Their measurement is consequently useful in the laboratory and clinic. Contrast enhanced ultrasound image velocimetry (UIV) canestimate them accurately but the need to inject contrast agents limits utility. Singular value decomposition and high frame rate imaging may rendercontrast agents dispensable. Here we determined whether contrast agent freeUIV can measure flow and WSS. In simulation, accurate measurements wereachieved with a signal-to-noise ratio of 13.5 dB or higher. Signal intensity inthe rabbit aorta increased monotonically with mechanical index and was lowest during stagnant flow and uneven across the vessel. In vivo measurementswith contrast free and contrast enhanced UIV differed by 4.4 % and 1.9 % forvelocity magnitude and angle and by 9.47 % for WSS. Bland–Altman analysis of waveforms showed good agreement between contrast free and contrast enhanced UIV. In five rabbits the root-mean-square error was as low as 0.022m/s (0.81 %) and 0.11 Pa (1.7 %). This study demonstrates that with anoptimised protocol, UIV can assess flow and WSS without contrast agents.Unlike contrast enhanced UIV, it could be routinely employed.
Cueto C, Guasch L, Cudeiro J, et al., 2022, Spatial response identification enables robust experimental ultrasound computed tomography, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, Vol: 69, Pages: 27-37, ISSN: 0885-3010
Ultrasound computed tomography techniques have the potential to provide clinicians with 3-D, quantitative and high-resolution information of both soft and hard tissues such as the breast or the adult human brain. Their practical application requires accurate modeling of the acquisition setup: the spatial location, orientation, and impulse response (IR) of each ultrasound transducer. However, the existing calibration methods fail to accurately characterize these transducers unless their size can be considered negligible when compared with the dominant wavelength, which reduces signal-to-noise ratios below usable levels in the presence of high-contrast tissues such as the skull. In this article, we introduce a methodology that can simultaneously estimate the location, orientation, and IR of the ultrasound transducers in a single calibration. We do this by extending spatial response identification (SRI), an algorithm that we have recently proposed to estimate transducer IRs. Our proposed methodology replaces the transducers in the acquisition device with a surrogate model whose effective response matches the experimental data by fitting a numerical model of wave propagation. This results in a flexible and robust calibration procedure that can accurately predict the behavior of the ultrasound acquisition device without ever having to know where the real transducers are or their individual IR. Experimental results using a ring acquisition system show that SRI produces calibrations of significantly higher quality than standard methodologies across all transducers, both in transmission and in reception. Experimental full-waveform inversion (FWI) reconstructions of a tissue-mimicking phantom demonstrate that SRI generates more accurate reconstructions than those produced with standard calibration techniques.
Schmitz G, Tang M, 2022, Welcome Message from the Technical Program Chairs, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS, Vol: 2022-October, ISSN: 1948-5719
Wang B, Yan J, Riemer K, et al., 2022, Comparison of localization methods for 3D Super-Resolution Ultrasound Imaging, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Nie L, Toulemonde M, Tang M-X, et al., 2022, 3D Localization of Scatterers with a Spiral-Shaped Acoustic Lens, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Sze S, Bates O, Toulemonde M, et al., 2022, Semi-automatic Segmentation of the Myocardium in High-Frame Rate and Clinical Contrast Echocardiography Images, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Zaydullin R, Bharath AA, Grisan E, et al., 2022, Motion Correction Using Deep Learning Neural Networks - Effects of Data Representation, IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Publisher: IEEE, ISSN: 1948-5719
Reavette RM, Sherwin SJ, Tang M-X, et al., 2021, Wave intensity analysis combined with machine learning can detect impaired stroke volume in simulations of heart failure, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Vol: 9, Pages: 1-13, ISSN: 2296-4185
Heart failure is treatable, but in the United Kingdom, the 1-, 5- and 10-year mortality rates are 24.1, 54.5 and 75.5%, respectively. The poor prognosis reflects, in part, the lack of specific, simple and affordable diagnostic techniques; the disease is often advanced by the time a diagnosis is made. Previous studies have demonstrated that certain metrics derived from pressure-velocity-based wave intensity analysis are significantly altered in the presence of impaired heart performance when averaged over groups, but to date, no study has examined the diagnostic potential of wave intensity on an individual basis, and, additionally, the pressure waveform can only be obtained accurately using invasive methods, which has inhibited clinical adoption. Here, we investigate whether a new form of wave intensity based on noninvasive measurements of arterial diameter and velocity can detect impaired heart performance in an individual. To do so, we have generated a virtual population of two-thousand elderly subjects, modelling half as healthy controls and half with an impaired stroke volume. All metrics derived from the diameter-velocity-based wave intensity waveforms in the carotid, brachial and radial arteries showed significant crossover between groups-no one metric in any artery could reliably indicate whether a subject's stroke volume was normal or impaired. However, after applying machine learning to the metrics, we found that a support vector classifier could simultaneously achieve up to 99% recall and 95% precision. We conclude that noninvasive wave intensity analysis has significant potential to improve heart failure screening and diagnosis.
Braga M, Leow CH, Gil JH, et al., 2021, Investigating CXCR4 expression of tumor cells and the vascular compartment: A multimodal approach, PLoS One, Vol: 16, Pages: 1-21, ISSN: 1932-6203
The C-X-C chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) is G protein-coupled receptor that upon binding to its cognate ligand, can lead to tumor progression. Several CXCR4-targeted therapies are currently under investigation, and with it comes the need for imaging agents capable of accurate depiction of CXCR4 for therapeutic stratification and monitoring. PET agents enjoy the most success, but more cost-effective and radiation-free approaches such as ultrasound (US) imaging could represent an attractive alternative. In this work, we developed a targeted microbubble (MB) for imaging of vascular CXCR4 expression in cancer. A CXCR4-targeted MB was developed through incorporation of the T140 peptide into the MB shell. Binding properties of the T140-MB and control, non-targeted MB (NT-MB) were evaluated in MDA-MB-231 cells where CXCR4 expression was knocked-down (via shRNA) through optical imaging, and in the lymphoma tumor models U2932 and SuDHL8 (high and low CXCR4 expression, respectively) by US imaging. PET imaging of [18F]MCFB, a tumor-penetrating CXCR4-targeted small molecule, was used to provide whole-tumor CXCR4 readouts. CXCR4 expression and microvessel density were performed by immunohistochemistry analysis and western blot. T140-MB were formed with similar properties to NT-MB and accumulated sensitively and specifically in cells according to their CXCR4 expression. In NOD SCID mice, T140-MB persisted longer in tumors than NT-MB, indicative of target interaction, but showed no difference between U2932 and SuDHL8. In contrast, PET imaging with [18F]MCFB showed a marked difference in tumor uptake at 40–60 min post-injection between the two tumor models (p<0.05). Ex vivo analysis revealed that the large differences in CXCR4 expression between the two models are not reflected in the vascular compartment, where the MB are restricted; in fact, microvessel density and CXCR4 expression in the vasculature was comparable between U2932 and SuDHL8 tumors. In conclusion, we success
Zhou X, Toulemonde M, Zhou X, et al., 2021, Volumetric Flow Estimation in a Coronary Artery Phantom Using High-Frame-Rate Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound, Speckle Decorrelation, and Doppler Flow Direction Detection, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS FERROELECTRICS AND FREQUENCY CONTROL, Vol: 68, Pages: 3299-3308, ISSN: 0885-3010
Hansen-Shearer J, Lerendegui M, Toulemonde M, et al., 2021, Ultrafast 3D ultrasound imaging using row-column array specific Frame-Multiply-and-Sum beamforming, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, Vol: 69, Pages: 480-488, ISSN: 0885-3010
Row-column arrays have been shown to be able to generate 3-D ultrafast ultrasound images with an order of magnitude less independent electronic channels than traditional 2-D matrix arrays. Unfortunately, row-column array images suffer from major imaging artefacts due to high side-lobes, particularly when operating at high frame rates. This paper proposes a rowcolumn specific beamforming technique, for orthogonal plane wave transmissions, that exploits the incoherent nature of certain row-column array artefacts. A series of volumetric images are produced using row or column transmissions of 3-D plane waves. The voxel-wise geometric mean of the beamformed volumetric images from each row and column pair is taken prior to compounding, which drastically reduces the incoherent imaging artefacts in the resulting image compared to traditional coherent compounding. The effectiveness of this technique was demonstrated in silico and in vitro, and the results show a significant reduction in side-lobe level with over 16 dB improvement in sidelobe to main-lobe energy ratio. Significantly improved contrast was demonstrated with contrast ratio increased by ∼10dB and generalised contrast-to-noise ratio increased by 158% when using the proposed new method compared to existing delay and sum during in vitro studies. The new technique allowed for higher quality 3-D imaging whilst maintaining high frame rate potential
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