Robust ultrasonic reverberation clutter suppression using Multi-Apodization with Cross-correlation

Shin, Jennifer; Chen, Yu; Nguyen, Minh; Yen, Jeannette

doi:10.1109/ultsym.2014.0134

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…ASAP's can also be combined with other methods for reducing side and grating lobes, such as DAX beamforming [37], [38], where the transducer aperture is also divided into sub-apertures to increase the quality of B-mode images, and minimum variance beamforming methods [39].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ASAP: Super-Contrast Vasculature Imaging Using Coherence Analysis and High Frame-Rate Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound

Stanziola

Leow

Bazigou

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging

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The very high frame rate afforded by ultrafast ultrasound, combined with microbubble contrast agents, opens new opportunities for imaging tissue microvasculature. However, new imaging paradigms are required to obtain superior image quality from the large amount of acquired data while allowing real-time implementation. In this paper, we report a technique-acoustic sub-aperture processing (ASAP)-capable of generating very high contrast/signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) images of macro-and microvessels, with similar computational complexity to classical power Doppler (PD) imaging. In ASAP, the received data are split into subgroups. The reconstructed data from each subgroup are temporally correlated over frames to generate the final image. As signals in subgroups are correlated but the noise is not, this substantially reduces the noise floor compared to PD. Using a clinical imaging probe, the method is shown to visualize vessels down to $200~\mu \text{m}$ with a SNR of 10 dB higher than PD and to resolve microvascular flow/perfusion information in rabbit kidneys noninvasively in vivo at multiple centimeter depths. With careful filter design, the technique also allows the estimation of flow direction and the separation of fast flow from tissue perfusion. ASAP can readily be implemented into hardware/firmware for real-time imaging and can be applied to contrast enhanced and potentially noncontrast imaging and 3-D imaging.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ASAP: Super-Contrast Vasculature Imaging Using Coherence Analysis and High Frame-Rate Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound

Stanziola

Leow

Bazigou

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging

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“…Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new technique called multi-phase apodization with cross-correlation (MPAX), an extension of PAX that is designed to be more robust particularly in an in vivo environment where high reverberation clutter level is expected. This work is also a development of our earlier work in which multiple amplitude apodization pairs are utilized for a similar purpose [24]. We demonstrate in this paper with simulation, experimental phantom, and in vivo imaging results that by utilizing multiple RX phase apodization pairs, MPAX achieves greater suppression of reverberation clutter and thus, greater contrast enhancement when compared with DAX.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Ultrasonic Reverberation Clutter Suppression Using Multiphase Apodization With Cross Correlation

Shin

Chen

Malhi

et al. 2016

IEEE Trans. Ultrason., Ferroelect., Freq. Contr.

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Despite numerous recent advances in medical ultrasound imaging, reverberation clutter from near-field anatomical structures, such as the abdominal wall, ribs, and tissue layers, is one of the major sources of ultrasound image quality degradation. Reverberation clutter signals are undesirable echoes, which arise as a result of multiple reflections of acoustic waves between the boundaries of these structures, and cause fill-in to lower image contrast. In order to mitigate the undesirable reverberation clutter effects, we present in this paper a new beamforming technique called multi-phase apodization with cross-correlation (MPAX), which is an improved version of our previous technique, DAX. While DAX uses a single pair of complementary amplitude apodizations, MPAX utilizes multiple pairs of complementary sinusoidal phase apodizations to intentionally introduce grating lobes from which an improved weighting matrix can be produced to effectively suppress reverberation clutter. Our experimental sponge phantom and preliminary in vivo results from human subjects presented in this work suggest that MPAX is a highly effective technique in suppressing reverberation clutter and has great potential for producing high contrast ultrasound images for more accurate diagnosis in clinics.

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“…By taking advantage of the fact that phase aberration and reverberation clutter effects are predominant at the fundamental frequency, harmonic imaging has been shown to be highly successful in improving image contrast. [8][9][10][11][12] On the other hand, adaptive weighting or adaptive imaging techniques such as the coherence factor (CF) 13 , the generalized coherence factor (GCF), 14 the short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC), 15 the aperture domain model image reconstruction (ADMIRE), 16 dual-apodization with cross-correlation (DAX), 17 and its variants 18,19 have also been proposed. In these techniques, coherence of the received channel data or the correlation of the beamsum data is computed at every pixel location in the field-of-view (FOV) and the corresponding pixel intensity is weighted down by the computed weighting factor to achieve enhanced contrast in the ultrasound image.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Evaluation of Adaptive Imaging Based on Multiphase Apodization with Cross-correlation: A Pilot Study in Abdominal Ultrasound

et al. 2018

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Degradation of image contrast caused by phase aberration, off-axis clutter, and reverberation clutter remains one of the most important problems in abdominal ultrasound imaging. Multiphase apodization with cross-correlation (MPAX) is a novel beamforming technique that enhances ultrasound image contrast by adaptively suppressing unwanted acoustic clutter. MPAX employs multiple pairs of complementary sinusoidal phase apodizations to intentionally introduce grating lobes that can be used to derive a weighting matrix, which mostly preserves the on-axis signals from tissue but reduces acoustic clutter contributions when multiplied with the beamformed radio-frequency (RF) signals. In this paper, in vivo performance of the MPAX technique was evaluated in abdominal ultrasound using data sets obtained from 10 human subjects referred for abdominal ultrasound at the USC Keck School of Medicine. Improvement in image contrast was quantified, first, by the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and, second, by the rating of two experienced radiologists. The MPAX technique was evaluated for longitudinal and transverse views of the abdominal aorta, the inferior vena cava, the gallbladder, and the portal vein. Our in vivo results and analyses demonstrate the feasibility of the MPAX technique in enhancing image contrast in abdominal ultrasound and show potential for creating high contrast ultrasound images with improved target detectability and diagnostic confidence.

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Robust ultrasonic reverberation clutter suppression using Multi-Apodization with Cross-correlation

Cited by 12 publications

References 13 publications

ASAP: Super-Contrast Vasculature Imaging Using Coherence Analysis and High Frame-Rate Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound

ASAP: Super-Contrast Vasculature Imaging Using Coherence Analysis and High Frame-Rate Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound

Ultrasonic Reverberation Clutter Suppression Using Multiphase Apodization With Cross Correlation

Performance Evaluation of Adaptive Imaging Based on Multiphase Apodization with Cross-correlation: A Pilot Study in Abdominal Ultrasound

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