A new medical ultrasound research interface

Under a contract with the National Cancer Institute, we have developed an ultrasound research interface on a commercial scanner. The user can access and control a variety of scanner parameters which are not directly accessible through the clinical user interface, but which are vital to the success of potential scientific experiments. User-selectable parameters include ensemble or packet size, framerate, and receive aperture growth enable/disable. The research interface stores digitally beam formed RF (radio frequency) data in a format suitable for post processing for research. We present preliminary results demonstrating the interface's functionality and utility in several areas of research. As an example, we configured the research interface to collect raw RF data using phase inversion methods. The data was processed in two different ways, to emphasize the tissue signal using subtraction and filtering of inverted-phase signals and to emphasize the contrast agent signal using addition and filtering of inverted-phase signals.