| The goal of this dissertation is to explore the physics underpinning the use of quantitative acoustic measurements to extend the role of ultrasonic imaging. In the 30 year history of medical ultrasonic imaging, the diagnostic use of this modality has primarily relied upon morphology and motion to differentiate healthy from diseased tissue. Significant improvements in the bandwidth and dynamic range of clinical ultrasonic imaging systems in recent years offer the possibility of complementing existing qualitative information with truly quantitative information, derived from measurements of the acoustic properties of soft tissue. The phase velocity, attenuation coefficient, and backscatter coefficient are three such acoustic properties that are often employed to characterize the state of soft tissues. One goal of this dissertation was to investigate the reliability of these measurements, based on systematic laboratory studies performed on well-characterized tissue-mimicking media. To this end, quantitative measurements of the frequency dependence of phase velocity, attenuation coefficient, and backscatter coefficient were performed in tissue-mimicking phantoms as part of a national, multi-center study, sponsored by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine. Both the intra- and inter-laboratory variability associated with these measurements were addressed. In addition to assessing the reproducibility of quantitative estimates of these acoustic parameters, this dissertation introduces and experimentally validates a novel measurement technique, based on the Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations, that improves the robustness of frequency domain phase velocity estimates in tissue-like media. |
