4DUS

The main objective of this project is the improvement of real ultrasound data of the human heart. The spatial representation of the heart in-vivo using ultrasound imaging is currently fairly limited and not of much diagnostic use due to motion artefacts and registration errors in ultrasound-head position tracking. Further on it is technically impossible to scan all medical relevant regions of the heart from a single transducer position.

This is the reason why traditional 2D examinations are done from several positions acquiring the standard slices. Our approach to improve the imaging quality is to merge ultrasound data from different transducer positions intelligently. The motion is recorded by 6-DOF position sensors allowing absolute free positioning of the transducer to get the best beam direction for each region of interest. With specialised techniques in merging ultrasound data from different positions using digital imaging algorithms we are confident to improve the image quality to such an extent that the sensitivity and diagnostic possibilities are significantly enhanced.

Partners

• Klinikum der Bayerischen Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg: http://www.medizin.uni-wuerzburg.de/