Multi-parameter inversion with the aid of particle velocity field reconstruction.

Multi-parameter inversion for medical ultrasound leads to an improved tissue classification. In general, simultaneous reconstruction of volume density of mass and compressibility would require knowledge of the particle velocity field along with the pressure field. However, in practice the particle velocity field is not measured. Here, the authors propose a method for multi-parameter inversion where the particle velocity field is reconstructed from the measured pressure field. To this end, the measured pressure field is described using outward propagating Hankel functions. For a synthetic setup, it is shown that the reconstructed particle velocity field matches the forward modelled particle velocity field. Next, the reconstructed particle velocity field is used together with the synthetically measured pressure field to reconstruct density and compressibility profiles with the aid of contrast source inversion. Finally, comparing the reconstructed speed of sound profiles obtained via single-parameter versus multi-parameter inversion shows that multi-parameter outperforms single-parameter inversion with respect to accuracy and stability.

Redatuming of 2-D Wave Fields Measured on an Arbitrary-Shaped Closed Aperture.

Whole-breast ultrasound scanning systems are used to screen a women's breast for suspicious lesions. Typically, the transducers are located at fixed positions at relatively large distances from the breast to avoid any contact with the breast. Unfortunately, these large distances give rise to large spatial domains to be imaged. These large domains hamper the applicability of imaging by inversion. To reduce the size of the spatial computational domain, we present a 2-D redatuming method based on the Hankel decomposition of the measured field. With this method, the field measured over an arbitrary-shaped closed curve can be redatumed to a new curve enclosing a smaller spatial domain. Additional advantages of the proposed method are that it allows to account for the finite size and orientation of a transducer and that it is robust to noise. The proposed method is successfully validated using the synthetic and measured data, and the results show that the recorded field can be redatumed to any position in the embedding.

Ultrasonic Synthetic-Aperture Interface Imaging.

Synthetic-aperture (SA) imaging is a popular method to visualize the reflectivity of an object from ultrasonic reflections. The method yields an image of the (volume) contrast in acoustic impedance with respect to the embedding. Typically, constant mass density is assumed in the underlying derivation. Due to the band-limited nature of the recorded data, the image is blurred in space, which is quantified by the associated point spread function. SA volume imaging is valid under the Born approximation, where it is assumed that the contrast is weak. When objects are large with respect to the wavelength, it is questionable whether SA volume imaging should be the method-of-choice. Herein, we propose an alternative solution that we refer to as SA interface imaging. This approach yields a vector image of the discontinuities of acoustic impedance at the tissue interfaces. Constant wave speed is assumed in the underlying derivation. The image is blurred in space by a tensor, which we refer to as the interface spread function. SA interface imaging is valid under the Kirchhoff approximation, where it is assumed that the wavelength is small compared to the spatial dimensions of the interfaces. We compare the performance of volume and interface imaging on synthetic data and on experimental data of a gelatin cylinder with a radius of 75 wavelengths, submerged in water. As expected, the interface image peaks at the gelatin-water interface, while the volume image exposes a peak and trough on opposing sides of the interface.