Simulation in Nonlinear Ultrasound. Application to Nonlinear Parameter Imaging in Echo Mode Configuration.

TitleSimulation in Nonlinear Ultrasound. Application to Nonlinear Parameter Imaging in Echo Mode Configuration.
Publication TypeThesis
Year of Publication2011
AuthorsF. Varray
AdvisorC. Cachard, O. Basset, and P. Tortoli
Academic DepartmentUniversité de Lyon
Date Published10/2011
UniversityUniversité de Lyon
KeywordsCREANUIS, GASM, Imagerie Ultrasonore, imagerie_ultrasonore, nonlinear image simulation, nonlinear parameter coefficient, nonlinear propagation simulation, ultrasound
Abstract

Harmonic imaging, based on the propagated medium nonlinearity, is a clinical imaging technique which increases the resolution of ultrasound images. The ultrasound measure of the local nonlinear parameter brings new perspectives in term tissues characterization. However, access to this information suffers from two strong points: from one hand, there is no current measurement method of this parameter in echo mode configuration and on the other hand, the simulation tools taking into account the nonlinearity are not many developed. An angular spectrum method has been proposed to compute the nonlinear pressure field with inhomogeneous nonlinear parameter. This pressure field is then used to generate ultrasound images containing the harmonic component. This spectral approach has been implemented on a GPU in order to accelerate the computation and package in a free software made available to the scientific community under the name CREANUIS. In a second time, a extension of a comparative method (ECM) has been proposed to take into account media with inhomogeneous nonlinearity, working an echo mode configuration. Thanks the developed simulation tools, different configurations have been used to parameterize and to evaluate the ECM which has then be validated on test objects and in vitro animal’s livers. Even if the measure presents a relatively weak resolution, the obtained images demonstrated a high potential in the nonlinear parameter imaging of tissues.

Citation KeyVARR-11e
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