Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Investigation of feasibility of singular value decomposition clutter filter in plane wave imaging with packet transmission sequence

  • Original Article–Physics & Engineering
  • Published:
Journal of Medical Ultrasonics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Assessment of blood flow is an important function in diagnostic ultrasound imaging. Color flow imaging is one such method widely used in the clinical setting. Since autocorrelation suffers from aliasing, the time interval between successive transmissions of ultrasonic pulses should be as short as possible. For this purpose, a specific transmit–receive sequence, namely, packet transmission, is widely used in color flow imaging. Also, plane wave imaging recently introduced to ultrasound imaging significantly contributes to improvement of the temporal resolution. Furthermore, a singular value decomposition (SVD) clutter filter reportedly outperforms a conventional clutter filter. In the present study, the feasibility of the SVD clutter filter in plane wave imaging with the packet transmission sequence was investigated.

Method

In the present study, the packet transmission sequence was implemented in plane wave imaging by sending plane waves multiple times in the same direction before changing the steering angle. In the first strategy, like conventional color flow imaging with line-by-line acquisition using a focused transmit beam, a clutter filter was applied to ultrasonic radio-frequency (RF) signals in each packet. In the second strategy, the number of transmissions per packet was set at two, and a clutter filter was applied to RF signals obtained from the first or second transmission in different packets.

Results

The in vivo experimental results on a human carotid artery showed that the second strategy with an SVD filter realized significantly better performance than the first strategy with a polynomial regression filter used as a conventional filter.

Conclusion

An SVD clutter filter was feasible in plane wave imaging with the packet transmission sequence, and the performance was improved by limiting the number of transmissions per packet to two.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Kasai C, Namekawa K, Koyano A, Omoto R. Real-time twodimensional blood flow imaging using an autocorrelation technique. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 1985;32:458–63.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Tanter M, Bercoff J, Sandrin L, Fink M. Ultrafast compound imaging for 2-D motion vector estimation: Application to transient elastography. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2002;49:1363–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hasegawa H, Kanai H. Simultaneous imaging of artery-wall strain and blood flow by high frame rate acquisition of RF signals. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2008;55:2626–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Hasegawa H, Kanai H. Simultaneous imaging of artery-wall strain and blood flow realized by high frame rate acquisition of RF echoes. In: 2008 IEEE Intern’l Ultrason. Symp. Proc. 2008; pp. 225-228

  5. Udesen J, Gran F, Kristoffer Hansen KL, Jensen JA, Thomsen C, Nielsen MB. High frame-rate blood vector velocity imaging using plane waves: Simulations and preliminary experiments. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2008;55:1729–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Hansen KL, Udesen J, Gran F, Jensen JA, Nielsen MB. Fast blood vector velocity imaging using ultrasound: in-vivo examples of complex blood flow in the vascular system. In: 2008 IEEE Intern’l Ultrason. Symp. Proc. 2008; pp. 1068–71

  7. Montaldo G, Tanter M, Bercoff J, Benech N, Fink M. Coherent plane-wave compounding for very high frame rate ultrasonography and transient elastography. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2009;56:489–506.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Bercoff J, Montaldo G, Loupas T, Savery D, Mézière F, Fink M, Tanter M. Ultrafast compound Doppler imaging: providing full blood flow characterization. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2011;58:134–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Takahashi H, Hasegawa H, Kanai H. Echo speckle imaging of blood particles with high-frame-rate echocardiography. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2014;53:07KF08.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Nagaoka R, Mozumi M, Hasegawa H. Investigation of the estimation accuracy of two-step block matching methods using envelope and RF signals for two-dimensional blood flow vector imaging. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2019;58:SGGE10.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Mozumi M, Nagaoka R, Hasegawa H. Utilization of singular value decomposition in high-frame-rate cardiac blood flow imaging. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2019;58:SGGF02.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Nagaoka R, Ishikawa K, Mozumi M, Cinthio M, Hasegawa H. Basic study on estimation method of wall shear stress in common carotid artery using blood flow imaging. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2020;59:SKKE16.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Ricci S, Bassi L, Tortoli P. Real-Time Vector velocity assessment through multigate Doppler and plane waves. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2014;61:314–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Yiu BYS, Yu ACH. Least-squares multi-angle Doppler estimators for plane-wave vector flow imaging. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2016;63:1733–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Tortoli P. Clinical evaluation of a new anti-aliasing technique for ultrasound pulsed Doppler analysis. Ultrasound Med Biol. 1989;15:749–56.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Hasegawa H, Kanai H. Expanding aliasing limit in measurement of tissue velocity using autocorrelation method. J Med Ultrason. 2014;41:151–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Mozumi M, Nagaoka R, Cinthio M, Hasegawa H. Anti-aliasing method for ultrasonic 2D phase-sensitive motion estimator. Jpn J Appl Phys. 2020;59:SKKF20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Nahas H, Au JS, Ishii T, Yiu BYS, Chee AJY, Yu ACH. A deep learning approach to resolve aliasing artifacts in ultrasound color flow imaging. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control (in press, available online).

  19. Podkowa AS, Oelze ML, Ketterling JA. High-frame-rate Doppler ultrasound using a repeated transmit sequence. Appl Sci. 2018;8:227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Demené C, Deffieux T, Pernot M, Osmanski BF, Biran V, Gennisson JL, Sieu LA, Bergel A, Franqui S, Correas JM, Correas JM, Cohen I, Baud O, Tanter M. Spatiotemporal clutter filtering of ultrafast ultrasound data highly increases Doppler and ultrasound sensitivity. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2015;34:2271–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Baranger J, Arnal B, Perren F, Baud O, Tanter M, Demené C. Adaptive spatiotemporal SVD clutter filtering for ultrafast Doppler imaging using similarity of spatial singular vectors. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2018;37:1574–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Song P, Manduca A, Trzasko JD, Chen S. Ultrasound small vessel imaging with block-wise adaptive local clutter filtering. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2017;36:251–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 18KK0110 and 19K22891.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, Academic Assembly, University of Toyama, 3190 Gofuku, Toyama, 930-8555, Japan

    Hideyuki Hasegawa, Ryo Nagaoka & Masaaki Omura

  2. Graduate School of Science and Engineering for Education, University of Toyama, 3190 Gofuku, Toyama, 930-8555, Japan

    Michiya Mozumi

  3. Department of Neurology, Nara Medical University, 840 Shijo-cho Kashihara, Nara, 634-8522, Japan

    Kozue Saito

Authors
  1. Hideyuki Hasegawa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ryo Nagaoka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Masaaki Omura
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michiya Mozumi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Kozue Saito
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hideyuki Hasegawa.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the institutional ethical committee and performed with the informed consent of the subject.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hasegawa, H., Nagaoka, R., Omura, M. et al. Investigation of feasibility of singular value decomposition clutter filter in plane wave imaging with packet transmission sequence. J Med Ultrasonics 48, 13–20 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-020-01067-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-020-01067-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation