Tomographic reconstruction of sound velocity distribution in the breast using linear arrays: experimental results

An approach based on limited-angle transmission tomography for reconstruction of the sound velocity distribution in the breast using linear arrays was proposed and evaluated by simulations last year. In this study, we investigate performance of the approach using experimental data. The experimental setup consisted of a 5 MHz 0.3-mm-pitch, 128-channel linear array, a programmable digital array system that was used to acquire radiofrequency channel data, a custom made tissue-mimicking phantom, and a personal computer for central control. A total of 9 different cases were evaluated and the experimental results show that obtaining the sound velocity distribution is feasible with the proposed reconstruction algorithm under current B-mode imaging setup with linear arrays. Therefore, this approach can be used to complement conventional B-mode imaging to enhance the detection of breast cancer.