Estimation of scatterer size and acoustic concentration in sound field produced by linear phased array transducer

Abstract

Although there have been several quantitative ultrasound studies on the methods of estimation of scatterer size and acoustic concentration based on the analysis of RF signals for tissue characterization, some problems, e.g., narrow frequency bandwidths and complex sound fields, have limited the clinical applications of such methods. In this report, two types of ultrasound transducer are investigated for the estimation of the scatterer size and acoustic concentration in two glass bead phantoms of different weight concentrations of 0.25 and 2.50% and those in an excised pig liver. The diameters of the glass beads ranged from 5 to 63 µm with an average of 50 µm. The first transducer is a single element and the other is a linear phased array. A comparison of the estimations obtained using both transducers gives an insight into how these methods could be applied clinically. Results obtained using the two transducers were significantly different. One of the possible explanations is that beamforming could significantly affect the backscatter coefficient estimation, which was not taken into account.