title: Modulated Excitation Imaging System for Intravascular Ultrasound.
abstract: Advances in methodologies and tools often lead to new insights into cardiovascular diseases. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is a well-established diagnostic method that provides high-resolution images of the vessel wall and atherosclerotic plaques. High-frequency (>50 MHz) ultrasound enables the spatial resolution of IVUS to approach that of optical imaging methods. However, the penetration depth decreases when using higher imaging frequencies due to the greater acoustic attenuation. An imaging method that improves the penetration depth of high-resolution IVUS would, therefore, be of major clinical importance. Modulated excitation imaging is known to allow ultrasound waves to penetrate further. This paper presents an ultrasound system specifically for modulated-excitation-based IVUS imaging. The system incorporates a high-voltage waveform generator and an image processing board that are optimized for IVUS applications. In addition, a miniaturized ultrasound transducer has been constructed using a Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3single crystal to improve the ultrasound characteristics. The results show that the proposed system was able to provide increases of 86.7% in penetration depth and 9.6 dB in the signal-to-noise ratio for 60 MHz IVUS. In vitro tissue samples were also investigated to demonstrate the performance of the system.
authors.forename: Weibao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.forename: Xingying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Lining
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jingjing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Jiyan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Yaonan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Hairong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014159:Transducers; D018084:Ultrasonography, Interventional / Q000295:instrumentation*