Visualization of multimodal polymer-shelled contrast agents using ultrasound contrast sequences: an experimental study in a tissue mimicking flow phantom

Cardiovascular Ultrasound

Research

Silvia Margheritelli¹  Gaio Paradossi¹  Letizia Oddo¹  Lars-Åke Brodin²  Malin Larsson²  Matilda Larsson³  Anna Bjällmark³  Kenneth Caidahl⁴  Jacek Nowak⁵ 

[1] Department of Chemical Sciences and Technologies, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy;Department of Medical Engineering, School of Technology and Health, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Alfred Nobels Allé 10, 141 52 Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden;Department of Medical Engineering, School of Technology and Health, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Alfred Nobels Allé 10, 141 52 Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden;Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden;Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden;Division of Clinical Physiology, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, Sweden;

关键词: Acoustic shadowing;    Contrast agent;    Contrast sequences;    Contrast to tissue ratio;    Flow phantom;    Multimodal;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-7120-11-33

 received in 2013-06-25, accepted in 2013-08-27,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundA multimodal polymer-shelled contrast agent (CA) with target specific potential was recently developed and tested for its acoustic properties in a single element transducer setup. Since the developed polymeric CA has different chemical composition than the commercially available CAs, there is an interest to study its acoustic response when using clinical ultrasound systems. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the acoustic response by studying the visualization capability and shadowing effect of three polymer-shelled CAs when using optimized sequences for contrast imaging.MethodsThe acoustic response of three types of the multimodal CA was evaluated in a tissue mimicking flow phantom setup by measuring contrast to tissue ratio (CTR) and acoustic shadowing using five image sequences optimized for contrast imaging. The measurements were performed over a mechanical index (MI) range of 0.2-1.2 at three CA concentrations (106, 105, 104 microbubbles/ml).ResultsThe CTR-values were found to vary with the applied contrast sequence, MI and CA. The highest CTR-values were obtained when a contrast sequence optimized for higher MI imaging was used. At a CA concentration of 106 microbubbles/ml, acoustic shadowing was observed for all contrast sequences and CAs.ConclusionsThe CAs showed the potential to enhance ultrasound images generated by available contrast sequences. A CA concentration of 106 MBs/ml implies a non-linear relation between MB concentration and image intensity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Larsson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013