Estimation of Tumor Angiogenesis With Contrast Enhanced Subharmonic Ultrasound Imaging
Abstract
Preliminary reports indicate that ultrasound contrast significantly improves the sensitivity and specificity of breast ultrasound imaging. New contrast-specific imaging modalities such as harmonic imaging (HI) may further improve the accuracy of breast ultrasound. Unfortunately, HI suffers from reduced blood-to-tissue contrast resulting from second harmonic generation and accumulation in tissue. As an alternative we propose using subharmonic imaging (SHI) by transmitting at the double the resonance frequency (2f0) and receiving at the subharmonic (f0) . Because of no subharmonic generation in tissue and significant subharmonic scattering from some new contrast agents SHI has the potential to detect slow, small volume blood flow associated with tumor neovascularity, making early detection and identification of tumors very likely. Hence, the current project proposes to increase the ability of breast ultrasound to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions by combining injection of an ultrasound contrast agent with SHI. To date, a dual-transducer pulse-echo system has been built to perform in vitro SHI measurements and initial experiments have been conducted with the contrast agents Levovist and Optison. Up to 20 dB subharmonic signal components were measured. A phantom for measuring perfusion rates is currently being designed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA396704
Entities
People
- Flemming Forsberg
Organizations
- Thomas Jefferson University