Title :
Assessment of image quality of intracoronary ultrasound systems with tissue-equivalent vessel phantoms
Author :
Krass, S. ; Brennecke, R. ; Voigtlaender, T. ; Staehr, P. ; Rupprecht, HJ ; Meyer, J.
Author_Institution :
II Med. Clinic, Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz, Germany
Abstract :
Imaging of vascular structures by intracoronary ultrasound (ICUS) is finding more and more applications in coronary diagnosis and in the assessment of interventional access. The authors describe a method for easy and quick production of tissue-equivalent vessel phantoms from a special hydrocolloid. The mechanical tolerance is less than 3/100 mm. With these phantoms the authors tested the calibration and measured the resolution properties of the SONOS intravascular ultrasonic system (Hewlett Packard). The measurements revealed a slight space related underestimation of diameters up to 280 /spl mu/m. Using cross correlation and auto correlation functions the authors analyzed digitized ultrasonic pictures to determine the correlation length of speckle in three dimensions and derived an estimate of the space related resolution cell size.<>
Keywords :
biomedical equipment; biomedical ultrasonics; cardiology; medical image processing; quality control; 280 mum; auto correlation functions; coronary diagnosis; cross correlation; digitized ultrasonic pictures; image quality assessment; interventional access assessment; intracoronary ultrasound systems; mechanical tolerance; space related diameter underestimation; space related resolution cell size; special hydrocolloid; speckle correlation length; tissue-equivalent vessel phantoms; Autocorrelation; Calibration; Extraterrestrial measurements; Image quality; Imaging phantoms; Production; SONOS devices; System testing; Ultrasonic imaging; Ultrasonic variables measurement;
Conference_Titel :
Computers in Cardiology 1994
Conference_Location :
Bethesda, MD, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-6570-X
DOI :
10.1109/CIC.1994.470192
