Ultrasound Imaging and Therapy PDF

Preface

For the past 50 years, ultrasound imaging has been used extensively for diagnosis of a wide range of diseases. With improvements in image quality and reduction of cost for advanced features, ultrasound imaging is playing an ever-greater role in diagnosis and image-guided interventions. The pace of innovations is increasing, and new improved applications are constantly being described. Many of these have been adopted by clinicians for routine use. This book offers an overview of ultrasound imaging for diagnosis, covering its use in image-guided interventions and ultrasound-based therapy and highlighting the latest advances. It discusses both improvements on current techniques already in clinical use as well as techniques in an advanced state of testing with great potential for adoption into routine clinical use. The scope extends from background on the state of the art in transducers and beam formers for use in 2-D, 3-D, and 4-D ultrasound as well as developments in tissue characterization, Doppler techniques, use of ultrasound contrast agents, ultrasound-guided biopsy and therapy, and use of ultrasound to deliver therapy.

Many books have been written on this subject, but this field is advancing rapidly, with ever-expanding applications. During this last decade, ultrasound imaging has increased its role in image-guided delivery and monitoring of therapy. As a result, increasing numbers of medical physicists, radiation therapy physicists, and biomedical engineers are making use of this technology in their work and research. In addition, more computer scientists have been needed to develop image processing algorithms for diagnostic and interventional applications. Thus, this book has two objectives: (1) to inform the audience on the state of the art of current and developing techniques and (2) to identify trends in the use of ultrasound imaging and the technical and computational problems that need to be solved.

We have aimed the book at individuals working on diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Thus, the audience is quite broad and includes researchers, trainees, academic physicians, technicians, and technologists in research laboratories and diagnostic and therapy departments. It will be of particular importance to researchers and their trainees who are trying to identify areas that require innovative solutions to unsolved problems. In addition, it will be of value to those working in diagnostic and treatment centers with interest in identifying trends and future offerings by vendors. Because many of the applications require computational algorithmic solutions, computer science researchers and trainees will find a useful review of major problems and specifications that should be met.

The book is organized into three main sections. The first chapters deal with advances in the technology, including transducers (2-D, 3-D, and 4-D), beamformers, 3-D imaging systems, and blood velocity estimation systems. The second section deals with diagnostic applications, including elastography, quantitative techniques for therapy monitoring and diagnostic imaging, and ultrasound tomography. The last two chapters address the use of ultrasound in image-guided interventions, for image-guided biopsy and brain imaging.