An approach for measuring ultrasonic backscattering from biological tissues with focused transducers

When the standard substitution method is used with a focused transducer to measure the backscattering coefficient from biological tissues including blood, it yields erroneous results. Extending the backscattering measurements to frequencies beyond 15 MHz necessitates the use of focused transducers because of the worsened signal-to-noise ratio--caused by the increased attenuation and the smaller transducer aperture size--in order to make the measurements close to the transducer. An approach which allows the use of focused transducers in backscattering measurements has been developed. It has been used to measure the backscattering coefficient of red cell suspensions of hematocrit ranging from a few percent to 30% in the frequency range from 5 MHz to 30 MHz. The results at hematocrits below 20% agree well with those obtained with the standard substitution method, although they differ as the hematocrit is increased beyond 20%. The experimental results also show that the fourth-power dependence of backscatter on frequency is in general approximately valid for suspended erythrocytes of hematocrit between 6% and 30%.