Modulated Excitation Imaging System for Intravascular Ultrasound

Weibao Qiu, Xingying Wang, Yan Chen, Qiang Fu, Min Su, Lining Zhang, Jingjing Xia, Jiyan Dai, Yaonan Zhang, Hairong Zheng

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

40 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Advances in methodologies and tools often lead to new insights into cardiovascular diseases. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is a well-established diagnostic method that provides high-resolution images of the vessel wall and atherosclerotic plaques. High-frequency (>50 MHz) ultrasound enables the spatial resolution of IVUS to approach that of optical imaging methods. However, the penetration depth decreases when using higher imaging frequencies due to the greater acoustic attenuation. An imaging method that improves the penetration depth of high-resolution IVUS would, therefore, be of major clinical importance. Modulated excitation imaging is known to allow ultrasound waves to penetrate further. This paper presents an ultrasound system specifically for modulated-excitation-based IVUS imaging. The system incorporates a high-voltage waveform generator and an image processing board that are optimized for IVUS applications. In addition, a miniaturized ultrasound transducer has been constructed using a Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3single crystal to improve the ultrasound characteristics. The results show that the proposed system was able to provide increases of 86.7% in penetration depth and 9.6 dB in the signal-to-noise ratio for 60 MHz IVUS. In vitro tissue samples were also investigated to demonstrate the performance of the system.
Original languageEnglish
Article number7752871
Pages (from-to)1935-1942
Number of pages8
JournalIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
Volume64
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2017

Keywords

  • High-frequency ultrasound
  • intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)
  • modulated excitation
  • ultrasound imaging
  • ultrasound system

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biomedical Engineering

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