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. 2013 Mar;39(3):534-42.
doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2012.09.022. Epub 2013 Jan 21.

In vivo application of short-lag spatial coherence imaging in human liver

Marko Jakovljevic  1 , Gregg E Trahey, Rendon C Nelson, Jeremy J Dahl
Affiliations

In vivo application of short-lag spatial coherence imaging in human liver

Marko Jakovljevic et al. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2013 Mar.

Abstract

We present the results of a patient study conducted to assess the performance of two novel imaging methods, namely short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) and harmonic spatial coherence imaging (HSCI), in an in vivo liver environment. Similar in appearance to the B-mode images, SLSC and HSCI images are based solely on the spatial coherence of fundamental and harmonic echo data, respectively, and do not depend on the echo magnitude. SLSC and HSCI suppress incoherent echo signals and thus tend to reduce clutter. The SLSC and HSCI images of 17 patients demonstrated sharper delineation of blood vessel walls, suppressed clutter inside the vessel lumen, and showed reduced speckle in surrounding tissue compared to matched B-modes. Target contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) show statistically significant improvements between fundamental B-mode and SLSC imaging and between harmonic B-mode and HSCI imaging (in all cases p < 0.001). The magnitude of improvement in contrast and CNR increases as the overall quality of B-mode images decreases. Poor-quality fundamental B-mode images (where image quality classification is based on both contrast and CNR) exhibit the highest improvements in both contrast and CNR (288% improvement in contrast and 533% improvement in CNR).

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
High quality fundamental B-mode image (left) and its matched SLSC image (right). Note that the SLSC image is the sector inserted into the B-mode image between the arrows. SLSC reduces clutter inside of blood vessels and increases smoothness of the surrounding tissue. The contrast of the large blood vessel located at the center of field of view at 10 cm depth is 11.3 dB and 13.5 dB, and the CNR is 1.4 and 1.86 for B-mode and SLSC images, respectively. The white contour lines in the B-mode image indicate the regions used to calculate contrast and CNR values.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Medium quality fundamental B-mode image (left) and the matched SLSC image (right). The blood vessel spanning the full depth of the image is detectable in both images. SLSC reduces clutter inside the vessel lumen and shows better delineation of its walls. The contrast is 7.8 dB and 8.9 dB and the CNR is 0.95 and 2.05 for B-mode and SLSC images, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Harmonic B-mode image (left) and matched HSCI image (right) of the same vessel as in Fig. 2. Even though the B-mode image is of medium quality, the HSCI image shows notable improvement in target visualization. The contrast is 9.6 dB and 9 dB and the CNR is 1.16 and 2.13 for B-mode and SLSC images, respectively.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Poor quality fundamental B-mode image (left) and matched SLSC image (right). Noise has corrupted the B-mode image and does not indicate the presence of a vessel at the center of the field of view. In the SLSC image, the vessel is easily visualized. The contrast is 0.26 dB and 4.44 dB and the CNR is 0.03 and 0.79 for B-mode and SLSC images, respectively.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Scatter plots of contrast values calculated from (a) matched fundamental B-mode and SLSCI images and (b) matched harmonic B-mode and HSCI images for each patient. Points that are above the main diagonal indicate improvements in contrast from B-mode to SLSC/HSCI. Dotted lines represent the contrast limits used to classify B-mode images as low, medium, or high quality. Light-gray-colored points in (a) indicate the patients for which both fundamental and harmonic data was obtained.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Scatter plots of CNR values calculated from (a) matched fundamental B-mode and SLSCI images and (b) matched harmonic B-mode and HSCI images for each patient. Points that are above the main diagonal indicate improvements in CNR from B-mode to SLSC. Dotted lines represent the CNR limits used to classify B-mode images as low, medium, or high quality. Light-gray-colored points in (a) indicate the patients for which both fundamental and harmonic data was obtained.
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