Video-Rate Ring-Array Ultrasound and Photoacoustic Tomography

Ultrasonography and photoacoustic tomography provide complementary contrasts in preclinical studies, disease diagnoses, and imaging-guided interventional procedures. Here, we present a video-rate (20 Hz) dual-modality ultrasound and photoacoustic tomographic platform that has a high resolution, rich contrasts, deep penetration, and wide field of view. A three-quarter ring-array ultrasonic transducer is used for both ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging. Plane-wave transmission/receiving approach is used for ultrasound imaging, which improves the imaging speed by nearly two folds and reduces the RF data size compared with the sequential single-channel scanning approach. GPU-based image reconstruction is developed to advance computational speed. We demonstrate fast dual-modality imaging in phantom, mouse, and human finger joint experiments. The results show respiration motion, heart beating, and detailed features in the mouse internal organs. To our knowledge, this is the first report on fast plane-wave ultrasound imaging and single-shot photoacoustic computed tomography in a ring-array system. © 2020 IEEE