Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol 9, Issue 1 23-34, Copyright © 1990 by American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine
Evaluation of image quality of ultrasound scanners in medical diagnostics
E. Alasaarela and J. Koivukangas
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, Finland.
The evaluation of the properties of ultrasound diagnostic scanners has not
yet been standardized. Because the image itself is the basis of diagnostic
decisions, it should also be the basis of evaluation of the capabilities of
scanners. This study is aimed to help the standardization work by
suggesting a procedure for testing the image quality of the scanners. The
image quality depends on the tissue resolution, which is difficult to
determine without real tissue studies. Therefore, the presented testing
procedure consists of two parts: first, lateral and longitudinal
resolution, image uniformity, sensitivity, and cyst and tumor imaging are
determined by phantom tests; second, imaging experiments of formalin-fixed
tissue samples are used to give information on the imaging capability of
selected tissue details and boundaries. The procedure has been carried out
by an experimental comparative test of 30 scanner and transducer
combinations. The role of real tissue tests is important. A reliable
whole-body phantom, including liquids flowing in veins, would be a
breakthrough in testing real-time image quality.
