TY - GEN

T1 - Comparison of 2D SURE and 3D CT imaging of cortical vessels in a rat kidney

AU - Hansen, Lauge Naur

AU - Kjer, Hans Martin

AU - Amin-Naji, Mostafa

AU - Panduro, Nathalie Sarup

AU - Sørensen, Charlotte Mehlin

AU - Gundlach, Carsten

AU - Dahl, Anders Bjorholm

AU - Jensen, Jørgen Arendt

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 IEEE.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - SUper-Resolution ultrasound imaging using the Erythrocytes (SURE) can visualize blood vessels at about 25 to 50 μm resolution, but validation is required to assess how accurately the vasculature and its morphology are represented. Previous work compared ultrasound imaging to maximum intensity projections (MIP) of micro-CT volumes at an insufficient voxel size of 22.6 μm. Here, a 5 μm voxel size micro-CT volume of a cortical region in an excised rat kidney was acquired to test the hypothesis that blood vessels down to 50 μm in diameter are detected with SURE imaging. For the micro-CT volume, the blood vessels were segmented by an intensity threshold, and local thickness estimates were computed using expanding spheres within the segmentation mask. An affine registration between the SURE image and the micro-CT volume was manually defined, and a MIP of the micro-CT volume across 2 mm from the ultrasound imaging plane was computed for vessels with diameter estimates greater than 50 μm. The SURE image depicts 12 cortical radial vessels with high intensities and 9 dimmer cortical radial vessels. Notably, the 12 high intensity vessels are also depicted in the micro-CT projection, but 5 cortical radial vessels and 2 arcuate blood vessels are only visible in the SURE image. Of the faintly depicted cortical radial vessels, 5 vessels are not readily matched to vessels in the micro-CT projection. On the other hand, the micro-CT projection contains 6 cortical radial vessel segments and 2 arcuate blood vessels not depicted in the SURE image. These discrepancies in the comparison may arise from the challenging registration of the ultrasound focus beam and the micro-CT volume that is complicated further by the different states of the imaged tissue. Despite these challenges, SURE depicts most vessels at least down to 50 μm and even resolves parallel vessels not visible in the micro-CT projection, thus highlighting its clinical potential.

AB - SUper-Resolution ultrasound imaging using the Erythrocytes (SURE) can visualize blood vessels at about 25 to 50 μm resolution, but validation is required to assess how accurately the vasculature and its morphology are represented. Previous work compared ultrasound imaging to maximum intensity projections (MIP) of micro-CT volumes at an insufficient voxel size of 22.6 μm. Here, a 5 μm voxel size micro-CT volume of a cortical region in an excised rat kidney was acquired to test the hypothesis that blood vessels down to 50 μm in diameter are detected with SURE imaging. For the micro-CT volume, the blood vessels were segmented by an intensity threshold, and local thickness estimates were computed using expanding spheres within the segmentation mask. An affine registration between the SURE image and the micro-CT volume was manually defined, and a MIP of the micro-CT volume across 2 mm from the ultrasound imaging plane was computed for vessels with diameter estimates greater than 50 μm. The SURE image depicts 12 cortical radial vessels with high intensities and 9 dimmer cortical radial vessels. Notably, the 12 high intensity vessels are also depicted in the micro-CT projection, but 5 cortical radial vessels and 2 arcuate blood vessels are only visible in the SURE image. Of the faintly depicted cortical radial vessels, 5 vessels are not readily matched to vessels in the micro-CT projection. On the other hand, the micro-CT projection contains 6 cortical radial vessel segments and 2 arcuate blood vessels not depicted in the SURE image. These discrepancies in the comparison may arise from the challenging registration of the ultrasound focus beam and the micro-CT volume that is complicated further by the different states of the imaged tissue. Despite these challenges, SURE depicts most vessels at least down to 50 μm and even resolves parallel vessels not visible in the micro-CT projection, thus highlighting its clinical potential.

KW - Flow imaging

KW - Imaging validation

KW - Micro computed tomography imaging

KW - Super resolution imaging

KW - Ultrasound imaging

U2 - 10.1109/IUS51837.2023.10306856

DO - 10.1109/IUS51837.2023.10306856

M3 - Article in proceedings

AN - SCOPUS:85178642472

SN - 979-8-3503-4646-6

T3 - IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS

SP - 1

EP - 4

BT - 2023 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS)

PB - IEEE

CY - Montreal, QC, Canada

T2 - 2023 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS 2023

Y2 - 3 September 2023 through 8 September 2023

ER -