Progress In Quantitative Ultrasonic Imaging

We are developing methods for imaging acoustic parameters individually to obtain a more direct interpretation of the scattering medium. Two properties of the medium that describe microscopic scattering structure have been accurately measured: the average scattering particle size and the product of the number density and the scattering strength. Analysis of quantitative images show increased image contrast by as much as 6 dB between regions that vary in these acoustic properties over that of conventional B-mode imaging. It is also possible to separate the effects of scatterer size from the effects of the number density and scattering strength. The motivation for developing these techniques for diagnostic ultrasound is to improve low-contrast detectability.