Ultrasound imaging and beyond: recent advances in medical ultrasound

摘要

Medical ultrasound represented by ultrasound imaging is generally believed to be well-known area in research, because ultrasound imaging systems has been widely distributed and actively used in the world since the 1960s. The annual world-wide use of ultrasound imaging in practice is already over billions and all pregnant women have been screened with ultrasound in some countries, such as Germany, Norway, Iceland, and Austria for years [1]. In industry, not only portable systems were available since the early 2000s, but also wireless ultrasound imaging transducers cooperating with tablet PCs were introduced in the early 2010s. Accordingly, ultrasound in medicine has been believed relatively low-tech and obsolete research field to general audience.