title: High frame rate and high line density ultrasound imaging for local pulse wave velocity estimation using motion matching: A feasibility study on vessel phantoms.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Fubing
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Chengwu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Division of Electronics and Information Technology, National Institute of Metrology, Beijing 100013, China.
authors.forename: Ke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Jinhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: luo_jianwen@tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jianwen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Luo
mesh_terms: D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D063177:Pulse Wave Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods
keywords: High frame rate; Inhomogeneous phantom; Motion matching; Pulse wave imaging; Pulse wave velocity