TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling breast ultrasound; on the applicability of commonly made approximations
AU - Taskin, Ulas
AU - Ozmen, Neslihan
AU - Gemmeke, Hartmut
AU - Van Dongen, Koen W.A.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - To design breast ultrasound scanning systems or to test new imaging methods, various computer models are used to simulate the acoustic wave field propagation through a breast. The computer models vary in complexity depending on the applied approximations. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the applied approximations affect the resulting wave field. In particular, we investigate the importance of taking three-dimensional (3-D) spatial variations in the compressibility, volume density of mass, and attenuation into account. In addition, we compare four 3-D solution methods: a full-wave method, a Born approximation method, a parabolic approximation method, and a ray-based method. Results show that, for frequencies below 1 MHz, the amplitude of the fields scattering off the compressibility or density contrasts are at least 24 dB higher than the amplitude of the fields scattering off the attenuation contrasts. The results also show that considering only speed of sound as a contrast is a valid approximation. In addition, it is shown that the pressure field modeled with the full-wave method is more accurate than the fields modeled using the other three methods. Finally, the accuracy of the full-wave method is location independent whereas the accuracy of the other methods strongly depends on the point of observation.
AB - To design breast ultrasound scanning systems or to test new imaging methods, various computer models are used to simulate the acoustic wave field propagation through a breast. The computer models vary in complexity depending on the applied approximations. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the applied approximations affect the resulting wave field. In particular, we investigate the importance of taking three-dimensional (3-D) spatial variations in the compressibility, volume density of mass, and attenuation into account. In addition, we compare four 3-D solution methods: a full-wave method, a Born approximation method, a parabolic approximation method, and a ray-based method. Results show that, for frequencies below 1 MHz, the amplitude of the fields scattering off the compressibility or density contrasts are at least 24 dB higher than the amplitude of the fields scattering off the attenuation contrasts. The results also show that considering only speed of sound as a contrast is a valid approximation. In addition, it is shown that the pressure field modeled with the full-wave method is more accurate than the fields modeled using the other three methods. Finally, the accuracy of the full-wave method is location independent whereas the accuracy of the other methods strongly depends on the point of observation.
KW - Breast ultrasound
KW - Forward modeling
KW - Full-wave method
UR - http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:50de2f97-9245-474c-b393-f5e3b94a0e16
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054030100&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.24425/123914
DO - 10.24425/123914
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85054030100
SN - 0137-5075
VL - 43
SP - 425
EP - 435
JO - Archives of Acoustics
JF - Archives of Acoustics
IS - 3
ER -