Ultrasonic B-Scan Imaging System for Noninvasive Assessment of Atherosclerosis

摘要

The goals of this project were to develop and evaluate an advanced ultrasonic instrument for the noninvasive detection and quantification of atherosclerotic plaque in the major abdominal arteries, including the abdominal aorta, iliacs, and mesentary arteries. Preliminary studies were conducted demonstrating that, as proposed, cross-correlations of signals from a large, segmented annular array transducer could be used to adjust time delays to compensate for refractive inhomogeneities in the tissue. A complete imaging system with real-time digital RF processing and cross-correlation has been constructed and tested in vitro. Further work remains to be done before clinical evaluation can be carried out.