In vivo evaluation of synthetic aperture sequential beamforming

Ultrasound in vivo imaging using synthetic aperture sequential beamformation (SASB) is compared with conventional imaging in a double blinded study using side-by-side comparisons. The objective is to evaluate if the image quality in terms of penetration depth, spatial resolution, contrast and unwanted artifacts is comparable to conventional imaging. In vivo data was acquired using a ProFocus ultrasound scanner (BK Medical, Herlev, Denmark) and a 192-element 3.5 MHz convex array transducer (Sound Technology Inc., PA, USA). Data were acquired interleaved, ensuring that the exact same anatomical locations were scanned. Eighteen volunteers were scanned abdominally resulting in 85 image sequence pairs. Evaluation of image quality was performed by five medical doctors. Results show that image quality using SASB was significantly better than conventional imaging (p value: <0.01). There was not a significant difference in penetration depth (p value: 0.55). The study supports that in vivo ultrasound imaging using SASB is feasible for abdominal imaging.