Estimation of Tumor Angiogenesis With Contrast Enhanced Subharmonic Ultrasound Imaging
Abstract
New contrast-specific imaging modalities such as harmonic imaging (HI) may 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 (2fo) and receiving at the subharmonic (fo) . 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 was built to perform in vitro SHI measurements and experiments were conducted using the contrast agent Optison in a perfusion phantom with realistic neovascular flow Velocities (2 mm/s). Up to 12 dB of subharmonic signal components were measured. It was discovered that the Logig 700 scanner targeted for implementation of SHI did not have the appropriate hardware configuration for running the software. A completely new Logig 700 scanner was acquired from GE (free of charge) . Three new iterations of SHI software have been developed and initial testing has commenced.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA408746
Entities
People
- Flemming Forsberg
Organizations
- Thomas Jefferson University