Preliminary comparison of 3D synthetic aperture imaging with Explososcan

Explososcan is the 'gold standard' for real-time 3D medical ultrasound imaging. In this paper, 3D synthetic aperture imaging is compared to Explososcan by simulation of 3D point spread functions. The simulations mimic a 32x32 element prototype transducer. The transducer mimicked is a dense matrix phased array with a pitch of 300 μm, made by Vermon.

For both imaging techniques, 289 emissions are used to image a volume spanning 60 in both the azimuth and elevation direction and 150mm in depth. This results for both techniques in a frame rate of 18 Hz. The implemented synthetic aperture technique reduces the number of transmit channels from 1024 to 256, compared to Explososcan.

In terms of FWHM performance, was Explososcan and synthetic aperture found to perform similar. At 90mm depth is Explososcan's FWHM performance 7% better than that of synthetic aperture. Synthetic aperture improved the cystic resolution, which expresses the ability to detect anechoic cysts in a uniform scattering media, at all depths except at Explososcan's focus point.

Synthetic aperture reduced the cyst radius, R20dB, at 90mm depth by 48%. Synthetic aperture imaging was shown to reduce the number of transmit channels by four and still, generally, improve the imaging quality.