TY - JOUR
T1 - Super Resolution Ultrasound Imaging Using the Erythrocytes
T2 - II: Velocity Images
AU - Naji, Mostafa Amin
AU - Taghavi, Iman
AU - Schou, Mikkel
AU - Praesius, Sebastian Kazmarek
AU - Hansen, Lauge Naur
AU - Panduro, Nathalie Sarup
AU - Andersen, Sofie Bech
AU - Sogaard, Stinne Byrholdt
AU - Gundlach, Carsten
AU - Kjer, Hans Martin
AU - Tomov, Borislav Gueorguiev
AU - Thomsen, Erik Vilain
AU - Nielsen, Michael Bachmann
AU - Larsen, Niels Bent
AU - Dahl, Anders Bjorholm
AU - Sorensen, Charlotte Mehlin
AU - Jensen, Jorgen Arendt
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Super resolution ultrasound imaging using the erythrocytes (SURE) has recently been introduced. The method uses erythrocytes as targets instead of fragile microbubbles (MBs). The abundance of erythrocyte scatterers makes it possible to acquire SURE data in just a few seconds compared to several minutes in ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) using MBs. A high number of scatterers can reduce the acquisition time, however, the tracking of uncorrelated and high-density scatterers is quite challenging. This paper hypothesizes that it is possible to detect and track erythrocytes as targets to obtain vascular flow images. A SURE tracking pipeline is used with modules for beamforming, recursive synthetic aperture imaging, motion estimation, echo canceling, peak detection, and recursive nearest neighbor tracker. The SURE tracking pipeline is capable of distinguishing the flow direction and separating tubes of a simulated Field II phantom with 125 to 25 μm wall-to-wall tube distances, as well as a 3D-printed hydrogel micro-flow phantom with 100 to 60 μm wall-to-wall channel distances. The comparison of an in-vivo SURE scan of a Sprague-Dawley rat kidney with ULM and micro-CT scans with voxel sizes of 26.5μm and 5μm demonstrated consistent findings. A microvascular structure composed of 16 vessels exhibited similarities across all imaging modalities. The flow direction and velocity profiles in the SURE scan were found to be concordant with those from ULM.
AB - Super resolution ultrasound imaging using the erythrocytes (SURE) has recently been introduced. The method uses erythrocytes as targets instead of fragile microbubbles (MBs). The abundance of erythrocyte scatterers makes it possible to acquire SURE data in just a few seconds compared to several minutes in ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) using MBs. A high number of scatterers can reduce the acquisition time, however, the tracking of uncorrelated and high-density scatterers is quite challenging. This paper hypothesizes that it is possible to detect and track erythrocytes as targets to obtain vascular flow images. A SURE tracking pipeline is used with modules for beamforming, recursive synthetic aperture imaging, motion estimation, echo canceling, peak detection, and recursive nearest neighbor tracker. The SURE tracking pipeline is capable of distinguishing the flow direction and separating tubes of a simulated Field II phantom with 125 to 25 μm wall-to-wall tube distances, as well as a 3D-printed hydrogel micro-flow phantom with 100 to 60 μm wall-to-wall channel distances. The comparison of an in-vivo SURE scan of a Sprague-Dawley rat kidney with ULM and micro-CT scans with voxel sizes of 26.5μm and 5μm demonstrated consistent findings. A microvascular structure composed of 16 vessels exhibited similarities across all imaging modalities. The flow direction and velocity profiles in the SURE scan were found to be concordant with those from ULM.
U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2024.3411795
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2024.3411795
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 38857146
VL - 71
SP - 945
EP - 959
JO - I E E E Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control
JF - I E E E Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control
SN - 0885-3010
IS - 8
ER -