Diffraction and Dispersion Effects on the Estimation of Ultrasound Attenuation and Velocity in Biological Tissues

In this paper, the various methods of estimating the attenuation and velocity of ultrasound in biological media are described. Special attention is paid to the influence of the transducer used in the measurement, i.e., the diffraction effect. This influence is investigated in a systematic way using realistic three-dimensional computer simulation techniques. The results of the analysis are given as universal sets of curves. These curves can be used by the interested reader to estimate the influence of the diffraction effect on the measurements for his own experimental conditions. Methods of preventing the systematic errors caused by the diffraction effect are discussed. For the sake of completeness, the effect of velocity dispersion on the measurement of velocity in tissues is discussed as well.

[1]  Johan M. Thijssen,et al.  The impulse response of a focused source with an arbitrary axisymmetric surface velocity distribution , 1984 .

[2]  J. Ophir,et al.  Ultrasonic attenuation measurements of in vivo human muscle. , 1982, Ultrasonic imaging.

[3]  R. Kuc,et al.  Estimating the Acoustic Attenuation Coefficient Slope for Liver from Reflected Ultrasound Signals , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Sonics and Ultrasonics.

[4]  G Kossoff,et al.  Analysis of focusing action of spherically curved transducers. , 1979, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[5]  Albert Freedman,et al.  Sound Field of Plane or Gently Curved Pulsed Radiators , 1970 .

[6]  M Fink,et al.  Ultrasonic signal processing for in vivo attenuation measurement: short time Fourier analysis. , 1983, Ultrasonic imaging.

[7]  K. A. Dines,et al.  Ultrasonic Attenuation Tomography of Soft Tissues , 1979 .

[8]  E. Feleppa,et al.  Theoretical framework for spectrum analysis in ultrasonic tissue characterization. , 1983, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[9]  R C Chivers,et al.  Ultrasonic attenuation in human tissue. , 1975, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[10]  Matthew O'Donnell,et al.  Effects of Diffraction on Measurements of the Frequency-Dependent Ultrasonic Attenuation , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[11]  M. Cloostermans,et al.  A Beam Corrected Estimation of the Frequency Dependent Attenuation of Biological Tissues from Backscattered Ultrasound , 1983 .

[12]  J. M. Thijssen,et al.  Measurement of Ultrasound Attenuation in Tissues from Scattered Reflections: In-Vitro Assessment of Applicability , 1981 .

[13]  A. Fried,et al.  Estimating Ultrasound Propagation Velocity in Tissues from Unwrapped Phase Spectra , 1980 .

[14]  E. Jaynes,et al.  Kramers–Kronig relationship between ultrasonic attenuation and phase velocity , 1981 .

[15]  P. Stepanishen.  Transient Radiation from Pistons in an Infinite Planar Baffle , 1970 .

[16]  J. Cardoso,et al.  Diffraction Effects in Pulse-Echo Measurement , 1984, IEEE Transactions on Sonics and Ultrasonics.

[17]  R. Mountford,et al.  Ultrasonic liver scanning: the A-scan in the normal and cirrhosis. , 1972, Physics in medicine and biology.

[18]  F Lizzi,et al.  Applications of spectral analysis in medical ultrasonography. , 1976, Ultrasonics.