Title: Accuracy of mechanical index displayed on ultrasound scanners
Abstract: The harmonic behavior of a ultrasound contrast agent (2nd generation) begins at a peak negative pressure of 10 kPa and finishes approximately at 60 kPa with the rupture of the contrast agent's bubble. Moreover, increasing the power of the ultrasound pulse, the tissue begins to have a har-monic response too, affecting the imaging of the contrast agent. The survival of the bubbles is affected by different parameters; the most important is the intensity of the ultrasound beam which can be related to several index: peak negative pressure, acoustic intensity (Ispta) and the mechanical index (MI). Therefore with harmonic imaging it is important to use low power pulses with a good accuracy and reproducibility; in order to optimize this technique is necessary to find a good index of the probability of destruction of the bubbles. Most of the scanners use the display of the mechanical index as the parameter associated to the harmonic behavior of the contrast agent. A special phantom was realized in order to measure the MI of different probes of different scanners with a hydrophone. Aim of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of the MI displayed by different scanners and to verify its correlation with the others parameter related to the microbubbles persistence.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-04-12
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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