Ultrasound medical imaging stands out among the other diagnostic imaging modalities for its patient-friendliness, high temporal resolution, low cost, and absence of ionizing radiation. On the other hand, it may still suffer from limited detail level, low signal-to-noise ratio, and narrow field-of-view. In the last decade, new beamforming and image reconstruction techniques have emerged which aim at improving resolution, contrast, and clutter suppression, especially in difficult-to-image patients. Nevertheless, achieving a higher image quality is of the utmost importance in diagnostic ultrasound medical imaging, and further developments are still indispensable. From this point of view, a crucial role can be played by novel beamforming techniques as well as by non-conventional image formation techniques (e.g., advanced transmission strategies, and compounding, coded, and harmonic imaging). This Special Issue includes novel contributions on both ultrasound beamforming and image formation techniques, particularly addressed at improving B-mode image quality and related diagnostic content. This indeed represents a hot topic in the ultrasound imaging community, and further active research in this field is expected, where many challenges still persist.

Ultrasound medical imaging stands out among the other diagnostic imaging modalities for its patient-friendliness, high temporal resolution, low cost, and absence of ionizing radiation. On the other hand, it may still suffer from limited detail level, low signal-to-noise ratio, and narrow field-of-view. In the last decade, new beamforming and image reconstruction techniques have emerged which aim at improving resolution, contrast, and clutter suppression, especially in difficult-to-image patients. Nevertheless, achieving a higher image quality is of the utmost importance in diagnostic ultrasound medical imaging, and further developments are still indispensable. From this point of view, a crucial role can be played by novel beamforming techniques as well as by non-conventional image formation techniques (e.g., advanced transmission strategies, and compounding, coded, and harmonic imaging). This Special Issue includes novel contributions on both ultrasound beamforming and image formation techniques, particularly addressed at improving B-mode image quality and related diagnostic content. This indeed represents a hot topic in the ultrasound imaging community, and further active research in this field is expected, where many challenges still persist.

This book deals with the concept of medical ultrasound imaging and discusses array signal processing in ultrasound. Signal processing using different beamforming techniques in order to achieve a desirable reconstructed image and, consequently, obtain useful information about the imaging medium is the main focus of this book. In this regard, the principles of image reconstruction techniques in ultrasound imaging are fully described, and the required processing steps are completely expanded and analyzed in detail. Simulation results to compare the performance of different beamformers are also included in this book to visualize their differences to the reader. Other advanced techniques in the field of medical ultrasound data processing, as well as their corresponding recent achievements, are also presented in this book. Simply put, in this book, processing of medical ultrasound data from different aspects and acquiring information from them in different manners are covered and organized in different chapters. Before going through the detailed explanation in each chapter, it gives the reader an overview of the considered issue and focuses his\her mind on the challenge ahead. The contents of the book are also presented in such a way that they are easy for the reader to understand. This book is recommended for researchers who study medical ultrasound data processing.

Diagnostic Ultrasound Imaging provides a unified description of the physical principles of ultrasound imaging, signal processing, systems and measurements. This comprehensive reference is a core resource for both graduate students and engineers in medical ultrasound research and design. With continuing rapid technological development of ultrasound in medical diagnosis, it is a critical subject for biomedical engineers, clinical and healthcare engineers and practitioners, medical physicists, and related professionals in the fields of signal and image processing. The book contains 17 new and updated chapters covering the fundamentals and latest advances in the area, and includes four appendices, 450 figures (60 available in color on the companion website), and almost 1,500 references. In addition to the continual influx of readers entering the field of ultrasound worldwide who need the broad grounding in the core technologies of ultrasound, this book provides those already working in these areas with clear and comprehensive expositions of these key new topics as well as introductions to state-of-the-art innovations in this field. - Enables practicing engineers, students and clinical professionals to understand the essential physics and signal processing techniques behind modern imaging systems as well as introducing the latest developments that will shape medical ultrasound in the future - Suitable for both newcomers and experienced readers, the practical, progressively organized applied approach is supported by hands-on MATLAB® code and worked examples that enable readers to understand the principles underlying diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound - Covers the new important developments in the use of medical ultrasound: elastography and high-intensity therapeutic ultrasound. Many new developments are comprehensively reviewed and explained, including aberration correction, acoustic measurements, acoustic radiation force imaging, alternate imaging architectures, bioeffects: diagnostic to therapeutic, Fourier transform imaging, multimode imaging, plane wave compounding, research platforms, synthetic aperture, vector Doppler, transient shear wave elastography, ultrafast imaging and Doppler, functional ultrasound and viscoelastic models

Essentials of Ultrasound Imaging offers a fast track introduction to the science, physics and technology of ultrasound imaging systems. Uniquely, principles are revealed by examples from software simulation programs, thus allowing the reader to engage with the concepts having minimal mathematical background. The material is organized around a functional block diagram which is, in turn, related to physical processes and implementations of the functional concepts on commercial and research imaging systems. Examples from a Verasonics Vantage Research Ultrasound System provide unparalleled insight into each step of ultrasound image creation including signal processing, transducer operation, different types of beamforming, and image formation. The last chapter examines the potential and capabilities of ultrasound imaging and measurement for future applications. With a thorough grounding of the physics and methods of ultrasound imaging, this book is suitable for students learning about ultrasound and researchers involved, or starting out in, ultrasound research development who might not have the background to understand the latest developments. - Gives an understanding of wave propagation, piezoelectric transducers, beam focusing, Doppler imaging of fluid flow, types of ultrasound systems, and real-time image formation and resolution - Explains basic mathematical and scientific concepts underlying ultrasound imaging and physics - Follows the passage of pulse-echo waveforms through the changes made by wave propagation, array beam formation, absorption, and system processing to image formation - Describes the concepts written in MATLAB® that are illustrated by numerous examples from unique simulations of physics, processing, and imaging and from experiments and signals within an ultrasound research system - Presents an accompanying simulator software package, in executable form, designed to demonstrate concepts with minimal mathematical background, together with a curriculum of hands-on experiments using an ultrasound research system, both available from Verasonics

All healthcare professionals practising ultrasound in a clinical setting should receive accredited training in the principles and practice of ultrasound scanning. This second edition of Diagnostic Ultrasound: Physics and Equipment provides a comprehensive introduction to the physics, technology and safety of ultrasound equipment, with high quality ultrasound images and diagrams throughout. It covers all aspects of the field at a level intended to meet the requirements of UK sonography courses. New to this edition: • Updated descriptions of ultrasound technology, quality assurance and safety. • Additional chapters dedicated to 3D ultrasound, contrast agents and elastography. • New glossary containing definitions of over 500 terms. The editors and contributing authors are all authorities in their areas, with contributions to the scientific and professional development of ultrasound at national and international level.

Many surgeries are trending toward minimally-invasive procedures to reduce patient recovery times and produce fewer complications. These procedures are characterized by having small surgical openings, making it difficult to use medical imaging equipment not specifically designed to fit into small openings. Clinicians use laparoscopes or other optical microscopes as the primary tools for endoscopic surgeries, but these tools only provide imaging at the surface and lack depth-resolved information that would be of utmost value. Recently, a high-frequency endoscopic phased-array imaging probe has been developed which provides an unprecedented combination of depth-resolved imaging resolution with a minimally-invasive form factor (2.5 x 3.0 mm). This technology has the potential to provide enhanced image guidance capabilities to a wide array of surgical applications. To be suitable for medical imaging applications we developed a suitable electronic imaging system, commonly referred to as a beamformer, to support this imaging probe. This system was the world's first real-time beamformer for high-frequency phased array imaging and uses a newly developed variable sampling scheme termed the 'One Sample per Pixel' technique for image formation. This hardware and imaging technique generate high-quality ultrasonic images in real-time. We improved on the system's capabilities by implementing ultrafast imaging techniques that greatly increased the system's usefulness while simultaneously developing a new ultrafast imaging technique for sector imaging called sparse orthogonal diverging wave imaging (SODWI), which offers a variety of advantages over similar techniques. These capabilities were applied to functional ultrasound imaging in a preclinical setting where we were able to detect the neurological activation of auditory structures in rats, in particular, the inferior colliculus. This functional ultrasound experiment was performed through a 3.5 x 6.0 mm opening, which is smaller than any previous functional ultrasound experiments in the literature. Future directions for developing the system and new applications of these technologies are described.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Ultrafast Ultrasound Imaging" that was published in Applied Sciences

The primary objective of this thesis is to study the factors that affect the contrast resolution of ultrasound B-mode images. A computer simulation model of B-mode image formation has been developed and validated. The model simulates beam profiles from linear, 1.5-D and curvilinear arrays. An initial study was performed to compare the accuracy and computational efficiency of different methods that have been used to calculate the field profile from linear arrays. It was concluded that the far-field approximation for the impulse response method yields the best trade-off between accuracy and efficiency. The model was used to investigate the effects of transducer design, and tissue parameters on the image characteristics, specifically, texture and contrast resolution. It was shown that the scatterer distribution, as well as the transducer geometry, determines the textural appearance and the contrast of an image. It was also demonstrated that post-processing schemes can significantly alter the image appearance by changing the mean signal levels and speckle statistics. The simulation model can be used to predict optimum values for the parameters used in post-processing algorithms. Different measures of contrast resolution were examined, and it was concluded that the contrast-to-speckle ratio is the most accurate measure in defining an imaging system's ability to detect low-contrast targets in background speckle noise. In order to illustrate the clinical application of the model, a simple, approximate model of a carotid artery wall with fatty plaque was developed and a preliminary study was performed to analyze the B-mode image of this geometry. The simulated image indicates that the wall region is more echogenic than the plaque region as is the case in clinical images. The image also reveals sharp reflection signals at the wall-plaque, and plaque-lumen interfaces. It was shown that the signal levels at these interfaces depend on the backscattering coefficients and the distributions of the scatterers in the neighbouring media.