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Petrescu A, Voigt JU. [Echocardiography with high frame rates in the clinical practice : Principles, applications and perspectives]. Herz 2023; 48:339-351. [PMID: 37530782 DOI: 10.1007/s00059-023-05199-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/16/2023] [Indexed: 08/03/2023]
Abstract
Continuous developments in cardiovascular imaging, software and hardware have led to technological advancements that open new ways for assessing myocardial mechanics, hemodynamics, and function. Through new scan modalities, echocardiographic scanners can nowadays achieve very high frame rates up to 5000 frames s-1 which enables a wide variety of new applications, including shear wave elastography, ultrafast speckle tracking, the visualization of intracardiac blood flow and myocardial perfusion imaging. This review provides an overview of these advances and demonstrates possible applications and their potential added value in the clinical practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aniela Petrescu
- Abteilung für Kardiologie, Universitätsmedizin Mainz, Mainz, Deutschland
| | - Jens-Uwe Voigt
- Department of Cardiology, University Hospital Leuven, University of Leuven, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgien.
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Orlowska M, Ramalli A, Bezy S, Meacci V, Voigt JU, D'Hooge J. In Vivo Comparison of Multiline Transmission and Diverging Wave Imaging for High-Frame-Rate Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2021; 68:1511-1520. [PMID: 33170777 DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2020.3037043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
High-frame-rate (HFR) speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) assesses myocardial function by quantifying motion and deformation at high temporal resolution. Among the proposed HFR techniques, multiline transmission (MLT) and diverging wave (DW) imaging have been used in this context both being characterized by specific advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, in this article, we directly contrast both approaches in an in vivo setting while operating at the same frame rate (FR). First, images were recorded at baseline (resting condition) from healthy volunteers and patients. Next, additional acquisitions during stress echocardiography were performed on volunteers. Each scan was contoured and processed by a previously proposed 2-D HFR STE algorithm based on cross correlation. Then, strain curves and their end-systolic (ES) values were extracted for all myocardial segments for further statistical analysis. The baseline acquisitions did not reveal differences in estimated strain between the acquisition modes ( ); myocardial segments ( ); or an interaction between imaging mode and depth ( ). Similarly, during stress testing, no difference ( p = 0.7 ) was observed for the two scan sequences, stress levels or an interaction sequence-stress level ( p = 0.94 ). Overall, our findings show that MLT and DW compoundings give comparable HFR STE strain values and that the choice for using one method or the other may thus rather be based on other factors, for example, system requirements or computational cost.
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Nie L, Cowell DMJ, Carpenter TM, Mclaughlan JR, Cubukcu AA, Freear S. High-Frame-Rate Contrast-Enhanced Echocardiography Using Diverging Waves: 2-D Motion Estimation and Compensation. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2019; 66:359-371. [PMID: 30575531 DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2018.2887224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Combining diverging ultrasound waves and microbubbles could improve contrast-enhanced echocardiography (CEE), by providing enhanced temporal resolution for cardiac function assessment over a large imaging field of view. However, current image formation techniques using coherent summation of echoes from multiple steered diverging waves (DWs) are susceptible to tissue and microbubble motion artifacts, resulting in poor image quality. In this study, we used correlation-based 2-D motion estimation to perform motion compensation for CEE using DWs. The accuracy of this motion estimation method was evaluated with Field II simulations. The root-mean-square velocity errors were 5.9% ± 0.2% and 19.5% ± 0.4% in the axial and lateral directions, when normalized to the maximum value of 62.8 cm/s which is comparable to the highest speed of blood flow in the left ventricle (LV). The effects of this method on image contrast ratio (CR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were tested in vitro using a tissue mimicking rotating disk with a diameter of 10 cm. Compared against the control without motion compensation, a mean increase of 12 dB in CR and 7 dB in CNR were demonstrated when using this motion compensation method. The motion correction algorithm was tested in vivo on a CEE data set acquired with the Ultrasound Array Research Platform II performing coherent DW imaging. Improvement of the B-mode and contrast-mode image quality with cardiac motion and blood flow-induced microbubble motion was achieved. The results of motion estimation were further processed to interpret blood flow in the LV. This allowed for a triplex cardiac imaging technique, consisting of B mode, contrast mode, and 2-D vector flow imaging with a high frame rate of 250 Hz.
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Ramalli A, Dallai A, Guidi F, Bassi L, Boni E, Tong L, Fradella G, D'Hooge J, Tortoli P. Real-Time High-Frame-Rate Cardiac B-Mode and Tissue Doppler Imaging Based on Multiline Transmission and Multiline Acquisition. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2018; 65:2030-2041. [PMID: 30207953 DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2018.2869473] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death in the world, are often associated with the dysfunction of the left ventricle. Even if, in clinical practice, the myocardial function is often assessed through visual wall motion scoring on B-mode images, quantitative techniques have been introduced, e.g., ultrasound tissue Doppler imaging (TDI). However, this technique suffers from the limited frame rate of currently available imaging techniques that needs to be balanced with the field of view. High-frame-rate (HFR) cardiac imaging has been recently tested off-line by simultaneously transmitting multiple focused beams into different directions and acquiring raw channel data into a PC. Several image lines were then reconstructed from the echoes of each transmission (TX) event. The same approach has been used to increase the TDI frame rate without restricting the field of view. This paper demonstrates the real-time feasibility of multiline TX and acquisition methods for both HFR cardiac B-mode and TDI. These approaches have been implemented on the ULA-OP 256 research scanner, by taking care that the related resources were optimally exploited for these new applications. The obtainable performance in terms of image quality and frame rate has also been investigated. Experiments performed with a 128-element phased array probe show, for the first time, that real-time B-mode imaging is feasible at up to 1150 Hz without significant reduction in image quality or field of view. The implementation of a real-time TDI algorithm allowed obtaining TDI images with a frame rate of 288 Hz for a 90°-wide field of view. Finally, in vivo examples demonstrate the feasibility and the suitability of the method in clinical studies.
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Chen Y, D'hooge J, Luo J. Doppler-Based Motion Compensation Strategies for 3-D Diverging Wave Compounding and Multiplane-Transmit Beamforming: A Simulation Study. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2018; 65:1631-1642. [PMID: 29994703 DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2018.2851310] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Fast imaging of the heart has shown promise toward bringing new diagnostic information. Although most studies to date have been based on 2-D imaging technology, the ultimate diagnostic tool would enable fast 3-D echocardiography. Hereto, 3-D diverging wave compounding (DWC) and 3-D multiline-transmit (MLT) beamforming have recently been proposed. Moreover, in our recent study, a hybrid technique was proposed in which multiple planar diverging waves were transmitted [i.e., multiplane-transmit (MPT)]. The proposed 3MPT sequence was demonstrated to outperform $9 \times 9$ DWC and 16MLT-4MLA (i.e., multiline acquisition) while imaging moving targets. However, none of the investigated beamforming techniques made use of motion compensation (MoCo) strategies. In this paper, we therefore propose Doppler-based MoCo strategies for 3-D DWC and MPT and test them via computer simulations. It is demonstrated that the MoCo strategies proposed for both DWC and MPT are effective and significantly restore image quality. Moreover, the MPT beamforming with MoCo outperforms $9 \times 9$ DWC with MoCo in terms of contrast ratio and contrast-to-noise ratio. The proposed MPT beamforming with MoCo thus provides volumetric images with relatively high temporal resolution (~66 Hz) and high image quality that is minimally affected by motion artifacts.
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Bera D, Raghunathan SB, Chen C, Chen Z, Pertijs MAP, Verweij MD, Daeichin V, Vos HJ, van der Steen AFW, de Jong N, Bosch JG. Multiline 3D beamforming using micro-beamformed datasets for pediatric transesophageal echocardiography. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2018; 63:075015. [DOI: 10.1088/1361-6560/aab45e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
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Ilovitsh T, Ilovitsh A, Foiret J, Fite BZ, Ferrara KW. Acoustical structured illumination for super-resolution ultrasound imaging. Commun Biol 2018; 1:3. [PMID: 29888748 PMCID: PMC5988254 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-017-0003-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2017] [Accepted: 09/27/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Structured illumination microscopy is an optical method to increase the spatial resolution of wide-field fluorescence imaging beyond the diffraction limit by applying a spatially structured illumination light. Here, we extend this concept to facilitate super-resolution ultrasound imaging by manipulating the transmitted sound field to encode the high spatial frequencies into the observed image through aliasing. Post processing is applied to precisely shift the spectral components to their proper positions in k-space and effectively double the spatial resolution of the reconstructed image compared to one-way focusing. The method has broad application, including the detection of small lesions for early cancer diagnosis, improving the detection of the borders of organs and tumors, and enhancing visualization of vascular features. The method can be implemented with conventional ultrasound systems, without the need for additional components. The resulting image enhancement is demonstrated with both test objects and ex vivo rat metacarpals and phalanges.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tali Ilovitsh
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, 95616, CA, USA
| | - Asaf Ilovitsh
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, 95616, CA, USA
| | - Josquin Foiret
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, 95616, CA, USA
| | - Brett Z Fite
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, 95616, CA, USA
| | - Katherine W Ferrara
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, 95616, CA, USA.
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Ortega A, Provost J, Tong L, Santos P, Heyde B, Pernot M, D'hooge J. A Comparison of the Performance of Different Multiline Transmit Setups for Fast Volumetric Cardiac Ultrasound. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2016; 63:2082-2091. [PMID: 27705857 DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2016.2614652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
It was previously demonstrated in 2-D echocardiography that a proper multiline transmit (MLT) implementation can be used to increase frame rate while preserving image quality. Initial findings for extending MLT to 3-D showed that it might address the low spatiotemporal resolution of current volumetric ultrasound systems. However, to date, it remains unclear how much transmit/receive parallelization would be possible using a 3-D MLT system. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to contrast different MLT setups for 3-D imaging by computer simulation in order to determine an optimal tradeoff between the amount of parallelization of an MLT system and the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio of the resulting images. Hereto, the image quality of several MLT setups was estimated by quantifying their crosstalk energy level. The results showed that for the tested setups, 4MLT broad beams and 9MLT narrow beams with Tukey ( α = 0.5 ) apodization in transmit and receive give the highest frame rate gain while maintaining an acceptable interbeam interference level. Moreover, although 16MLT narrow beams with Tukey/Tukey ( α = 0.5 ) apodization did show more pronounced interbeam interference, its gain in frame rate might outweigh its predicted loss in image quality. As such both 9MLT and 16MLT narrow beams were tested experimentally. For both systems, four receive lines were reconstructed from each transmit beam. The contrast-to-noise ratio of these imaging strategies was quantified and compared with the image quality obtained with line-by-line scanning. Despite some expected loss in image quality, the resulting images of the parallelized systems were very competitive to the benchmark, while speeding up the acquisition process by a factor of 36 and 64, respectively.
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Li F, He Q, Huang C, Liu K, Shao J, Luo J. High frame rate and high line density ultrasound imaging for local pulse wave velocity estimation using motion matching: A feasibility study on vessel phantoms. ULTRASONICS 2016; 67:41-54. [PMID: 26773791 DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2015.12.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2015] [Revised: 11/20/2015] [Accepted: 12/28/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Pulse wave imaging (PWI) is an ultrasound-based method to visualize the propagation of pulse wave and to quantitatively estimate regional pulse wave velocity (PWV) of the arteries within the imaging field of view (FOV). To guarantee the reliability of PWV measurement, high frame rate imaging is required, which can be achieved by reducing the line density of ultrasound imaging or transmitting plane wave at the expense of spatial resolution and/or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this study, a composite, full-view imaging method using motion matching was proposed with both high temporal and spatial resolution. Ultrasound radiofrequency (RF) data of 4 sub-sectors, each with 34 beams, including a common beam, were acquired successively to achieve a frame rate of ∼507 Hz at an imaging depth of 35 mm. The acceleration profiles of the vessel wall estimated from the common beam were used to reconstruct the full-view (38-mm width, 128-beam) image sequence. The feasibility of mapping local PWV variation along the artery using PWI technique was preliminarily validated on both homogeneous and inhomogeneous polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) cryogel vessel phantoms. Regional PWVs for the three homogeneous phantoms measured by the proposed method were in accordance with the sparse imaging method (38-mm width, 32-beam) and plane wave imaging method. Local PWV was estimated using the above-mentioned three methods on 3 inhomogeneous phantoms, and good agreement was obtained in both the softer (1.91±0.24 m/s, 1.97±0.27 m/s and 1.78±0.28 m/s) and the stiffer region (4.17±0.46 m/s, 3.99±0.53 m/s and 4.27±0.49 m/s) of the phantoms. In addition to the improved spatial resolution, higher precision of local PWV estimation in low SNR circumstances was also obtained by the proposed method as compared with the sparse imaging method. The proposed method might be helpful in disease detections through mapping the local PWV of the vascular wall.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fubing Li
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Qiong He
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Chengwu Huang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Ke Liu
- Division of Electronics and Information Technology, National Institute of Metrology, Beijing 100013, China
| | - Jinhua Shao
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Jianwen Luo
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
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Tong L, Ramalli A, Tortoli P, Fradella G, Caciolli S, Luo J, D'hooge J. Wide-Angle Tissue Doppler Imaging at High Frame Rate Using Multi-Line Transmit Beamforming: An Experimental Validation In Vivo. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING 2016; 35:521-528. [PMID: 26394417 DOI: 10.1109/tmi.2015.2480061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Color tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) is a well-established methodology to assess local myocardial motion/deformation. Typically, a frame rate of ∼ 200 Hz can be achieved by imaging a narrow sector (∼ 30°, covering one cardiac wall) at moderate line density, using a dedicated pulse sequence and multi-line acquisition. However, a wide angle field-of-view is required in some clinical applications to image the whole left ventricle, which implies a drop in temporal resolution. Hereto, the aim of this study was to propose a novel imaging sequence using a multi-line transmit (MLT) beamforming approach to achieve high frame rate color TDI while preserving a wide field-of-view (i.e., 90° sector). To this end, a color MLT-TDI sequence achieving a frame rate of 208 Hz with a 90°-sector was implemented on an ultrasound experimental scanner interleaved with a conventional color TDI sequence achieving the same frame rate but only with a 22.5°-sector. Using this setup, the septal wall of 9 healthy volunteers was imaged and the corresponding velocity was extracted. The M-mode velocity images and the velocity profiles obtained from the MLT-TDI images presented physiologic patterns, very similar to those from conventional TDI. Moreover, for the peak systolic/diastolic velocities, good agreement and strong correlation between MLT-TDI and conventional TDI were found. The results thus demonstrate the feasibility of the novel MLT based TDI methodology to achieve high frame rate color TDI without compromising the field-of-view. This may open the opportunity to simultaneously assess regional myocardial function of the whole left ventricle at high temporal resolution.
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