Imaging of Spatial Distribution and Flow of Microbubbles Using Nonlinear Acoustic Properties

Today, medical ultrasound images can reveal subtle details of anatomy or blood flow with high spatial and temporal resolution. This has been made possible by the rapid progress in acoustical imaging during the last decades. Various ultrasound contrast agents are now becoming additional tools which allow special problems in imaging and functional diagnostics to be solved. They have a number of applications with state-of-the-art imaging techniques since most agents became sufficiently adapted to “conventional” imaging modes during their development. A certain class of contrast agents (first and foremost SHU 508 A, i.e. Levovist®) shows a very marked response at the second harmonic of the transmitted frequency f0, which is now used for selective detection in Harmonic Imaging — a class of imaging modes specially adapted to contrast media.1

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