A high resolution ultrasonic imaging system for the detection of cervical cancer

A digital scanning system for the ultrasonic. Detection of cervical cancer has been developed. The acoustic transducer is a high frequency (30 MHz) wide band single element PVDF transducer. Pulse-echo traces are recorded at up to 2,048 angular positions at a speed of 16 revolutions per second. The high frequency signals are continuously digitized at 200 Msamples/s with a resolution of 10 bits. A processing unit converts the data into a high resolution “radial” image in real-time and stores the digitized RF-data for further processing. The scanner supports two modi, a real-time search mode and an off-line characterization mode. The first mode is to obtain a basic impression of the cervix. After selection of a region of interest, the second mode uses seismic processing tools for image enhancement and tissue characterization. In this mode use is being made of residual focussing to obtain a high depth-independent resolution and the resulting high resolution image is analyzed by linear Radon transformation for angle dependent information