Assessment of Tissue Boundary Delineation Using Fundamental and Harmonic ADMIRE and SLSC for Percutaneous Biopsy Guidance

摘要

Ultrasound is used extensively for percutaneous biopsy guidance. However, conventional ultrasound images are often too poor to provide well-delineated tissue boundaries. To improve the quality of images, numerous beamforming methods have been developed. Our group has developed one such method, which is a model-based beamforming called ADMIRE, while a spatial coherence beamforming technique, referred to as SLSC, was demonstrated by others. Because both methods possess a robust ability to mitigate acoustic clutter, we assessed whether ADMIRE and SLSC provide better delineation of boundaries. We acquired in vivo kidney data from six patients undergoing biopsy and cryoablation using a Siemens SC2000. We then quantified the sharpness of edges at the kidney boundaries axially and laterally. We fit sigmoid functions to estimate the transition length (i.e., τ) at the boundary of the kidney. The axial/lateral values of τ using DAS, ADMIRE and SLSC were 2.09 ± 1.19/1.49 ± 0.48 mm, 0.32 ± 0.36/0.55 ± 0.16 mm, 1.75 ± 1.05/1.51 ± 0.80 mm, respectively. The axial/lateral values of τ for harmonic imaging when using DAS, ADMIRE and SLSC were 1.24 ± 0.57/0.88 ± 0.44 mm, 0.24 ± 0.07/0.28 ± 0.15 mm, 0.71 ± 0.77/0.88 ± 1.07 mm, respectively. These findings demonstrate that ADMIRE provided better tissue boundary delineation compared to standard B-mode and SLSC imaging.