Coded excitation for ultrasound tissue harmonic imaging

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Ultrasound Technology
• Acoustics

Background:

• Coded excitation enhances signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in ultrasound tissue harmonic imaging (THI).
• Incomplete pulse compression due to spectral overlap can increase sidelobe artifacts in THI.
• Nonlinear propagation in tissues causes spectral overlap between fundamental and harmonic ultrasound components.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate three coded tissue harmonic imaging (CTHI) techniques.
• To compare their performance in mitigating sidelobe artifacts.
• To identify the optimal CTHI method for reducing peak range sidelobe level (PRSL).

Main Methods:

• Investigated three CTHI techniques: CTHI-BF (bandpass filtering), CTHI-PM (power modulation), and CTHI-PI (pulse inversion).
• Measured Peak Range Sidelobe Level (PRSL) across varying frequency bandwidths.
• Utilized simulation and in vitro studies for evaluation.

Main Results:

• CTHI-PI demonstrated superior performance in reducing PRSL compared to CTHI-BF and CTHI-PM.
• CTHI-PI achieved a PRSL of -43.5dB.
• CTHI-BF and CTHI-PM showed PRSLs of -24.8dB and -23.0dB, respectively.

Conclusions:

• CTHI-PI is the most effective method among the evaluated techniques for minimizing sidelobe artifacts in ultrasound THI.
• The findings suggest CTHI-PI as a promising approach for improving image quality in ultrasound.
• Further research can explore broader applications and optimizations of CTHI-PI.