Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol 14, Issue 5 367-373, Copyright © 1995 by American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine
A practical approach to measuring an intravascular ultrasonographic imaging system beam pattern
C. A. Bernier, L. Huntsman and R. Martin
Center for Bioengineering WD-12, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
Characterizing beam patterns of miniature (1 to 3 mm diameter) catheter
sonographic systems operating at 15 to 50 MHz is difficult and such
information is often not provided by manufacturers. For investigators in
the field, quantitative information describing catheters and their systems
is important to properly understand measurements and images. A practical
means of characterizing the system is described that can be assembled in
most laboratories and used with existing catheter systems. The ultrasonic
beam pattern from an intravascular sonographic transducer is characterized
in three dimensions using images generated from a 150 microns diameter
spherical target. Experiments are described in which the point spread
function or beam pattern is mapped throughout the imaging system
field-of-view. Using this approach, the beam pattern and resolutions for a
commercial 1.18 mm diameter, 20 MHz intravascular catheter were measured.
