Aberration correction in diagnostic ultrasound: A review of the prior field and current directions

Ali, Rehman; Brevett, Thurston; Zhuang, Louise; Bendjador, Hanna; Podkowa, Anthony; Hsieh, Scott S.; Simson, Walter; Sanabria, Sergio J.; Herickhoff, Carl D.; Dahl, Jeremy J.

doi:10.1016/j.zemedi.2023.01.003

Cited by 17 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 159 publications

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“…Aberrators #1 and #2 had root mean square (RMS) values of 39 and 97, respectively. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) 35 of the autocorrelation function was estimated to be 1.14 mm for aberrator #1 and 0.96 mm for aberrator #2. In comparison, aberrator #2 was slightly stronger than what would typically be observed in vivo.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…C) FWHM 35

\begin{equation}FWHM = \int\limits_{{{{\lim }}_1}}^{{{{\lim }}_2}}{{\left( {\varphi - {\varphi }_0} \right)d\varphi }}.\end{equation}

where

li{m}_1

and

li{m}_2

represent the angular positions of the echo signal distribution when it reaches half of its maximum value on both the left and right sides of the peak value.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aberration correction by polynomial approximation for synthetic aperture ultrasound imaging

Leonov,

Kulberg,

Yakovleva

2024

Medical Physics

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BackgroundPreviously, there has been some work in the field of optical imaging on phase compensation by employing Legendre polynomials as an expansion of the phase function, and this seems to be an appealing unstudied area in the field of ultrasound imaging.PurposeThe paper is devoted to solving one of the problems of enhancing the authenticity of diagnostics data obtained in ultrasound visualization systems and presents a novel approach to aberration correction, which ensures a reliable eliminating of phase distortions. The novelty of the proposed approach consists in the use of the decomposition of the wave front by Legendre polynomials to approximate aberrations of the phase front of ultrasonic waves propagating through distorting layers.MethodsThe phase aberrations are corrected using a single sector probe that captures echoes in synthetic aperture mode. The proposed method approximates the changes in the wave front by means of the Legendre polynomials. The performance was investigated by placing a 13‐mm‐wide ultrasonic probe with 64 elements operating at 2 MHz on the surface of a commercial quality control phantom ATS Model 539 through a distorting layer. The following metrics were measured: peak value, root mean square (RMS), full width at half maximum (FWHM), contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR). During the experiments, three different aberrators were used interchangeably as distorting layers, two of which were made of photopolymer resin with RMS values of 39 and 97 ns and a speed of sound close to that of a human temporal bone tissue, and the third was an ex vivo human temporal bone with the RMS value of 44 ns. To test the correction, three regions inside the phantom were examined. Two‐sided nonparametric Wilcoxon rank‐sum test was used for assessing the statistical significance. The significance level for this study was set at α ≤ 0.05. To counteract the problem of multiple comparisons, the p‐values were adjusted by the Holm–Bonferroni correction method.ResultsThe statistically significant results have demonstrated the possibility of increasing peak intensity value up to 3.08 times, reducing the RMS width and FWHM of the intensity angular distribution down to 60% and 82%, respectively, and increasing CNR up to 2.12 times by using the proposed phase distortion correction method, compared with the case without correction. The results show that the method can be used as an effective aberration correction technique for all tested regions inside the phantom and distorting layers. Its usage allowed correcting up to 97% of the aberrations caused by the ex vivo temporal bone model.ConclusionThe results show that the usage of the proposed method for aberration correction can successfully increase the intensity and reduce the angular width of the ultrasound wave scattered by the point targets inside the phantoms. The method works with different distorting layers and is capable of correcting phase aberrations in multiple sections of the sonogram. The limitation of the proposed method consists in the fact that it requires the use of aperture synthesis and access to raw radiofrequency data, which restricts its application in common scanners.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…C) FWHM 35

\begin{equation}FWHM = \int\limits_{{{{\lim }}_1}}^{{{{\lim }}_2}}{{\left( {\varphi - {\varphi }_0} \right)d\varphi }}.\end{equation}

where

li{m}_1

and

li{m}_2

represent the angular positions of the echo signal distribution when it reaches half of its maximum value on both the left and right sides of the peak value.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aberration correction by polynomial approximation for synthetic aperture ultrasound imaging

Leonov,

Kulberg,

Yakovleva

2024

Medical Physics

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“…[19][20][21] Similarly to the estimation of SoS, Aberration Correction has received much attention for more than 50 years and numerous algorithms have been proposed some with significant success. An excellent review of this topic is in this referenced article from R. Ali et al 22) Nonetheless, no commercial scanners with aberration correction capability have been reported until 2023 with the introduction of that feature in a GE Vingmed scanner. It will be of great interest to see the form and performance of future enhancements.…”

Section: Selected Sbf Topics Of Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Possible futures for medical ultrasound technology

Thomenius

2024

Jpn. J. Appl. Phys.

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Medical ultrasound instruments have been available for clinical users for roughly the past 60 years. During this time the field has received deep attention from researchers in academia and industry. There has also been a close coupling between ultrasound scanners and microelectronics which has significantly aided in the process. In this invited talk this history will be summarized with the goal of defining the starting point of future technical developments of the field.

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“…Numerous techniques and models have been proposed to mitigate the image degradation that is caused by acoustic aberration [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. A typical example is the near-field phase screen model, which simplifies the effect of acoustic aberration caused by uneven SoS distribution as a phase screen located in front of the ultrasound transducer [ 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Iterative Pulse–Echo Tomography for Ultrasonic Image Correction

Zengqiu,

Wu,

Xiao

et al. 2024

Sensors

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Acoustic aberration, caused by the uneven distribution of tissue speed-of-sound (SoS), significantly reduces the quality of ultrasound imaging. An important approach to mitigate this issue is imaging correction based on local SoS estimation. Computed ultrasound tomography in echo mode (CUTE) is an SoS estimation method that utilizes phase-shift information from ultrasound pulse–echo signals, offering both practical utility and computational efficiency. However, the traditional single-pass CUTE often suffers from poor accuracy and robustness. In this paper, an advanced approach known as iterative CUTE is introduced, which refines SoS estimates through iterative correction of errors and noise, addressing the limitations of traditional single-pass methods. It is argued that traditional precision indicators like root mean square error (RMSE) fall short in adequately reflecting the quality of SoS estimates for imaging correction, and coherence factor (CF) is proposed as a more indicative metric. Performance validation of the iterative CUTE algorithm was conducted using a simulation and agar phantom experiment. The results indicated that the iterative CUTE approach surpasses the single-pass approach, enhancing the average CF for SoS estimates by up to 18.2%. In phantom experiments, imaging corrected with SoS estimates from iterative CUTE reduced the Array Performance Index (API) by up to 40% compared to traditional methods.

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Aberration correction in diagnostic ultrasound: A review of the prior field and current directions

Cited by 17 publications

References 159 publications

Aberration correction by polynomial approximation for synthetic aperture ultrasound imaging

Aberration correction by polynomial approximation for synthetic aperture ultrasound imaging

Possible futures for medical ultrasound technology

Iterative Pulse–Echo Tomography for Ultrasonic Image Correction

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