Vascular ultrasound imaging is inherently hampered by low lateral resolution and contrast. Steering of the ultrasound beams can be used to overcome these limitations in superficial artery imaging because the aperture-to-depth ratio is relatively high. However, in arteries located at larger depths, the steered beams do not overlap for larger steering angles. In this study, the ultrasound probe is physically translated over the abdomen to create large angles between acquisitions, while maintaining overlap on the abdominal aorta. In one phantom setup and 11 volunteers, 2-D cross-sectional multi-perspective ultrasound images of the abdominal aorta were acquired using seven angles between –45° and +45°. Automatic registration of the recorded images was performed by automatic feature detection of the aorta and spine. This automatic detection was successful in 62 out of 77 image sets. Compounded multi-perspective images showed an increase of contrast-to-noise ratios from 0.6 ± 0.1 to 1.2 ± 0.2 over the entire heart cycle in volunteers.

血管超声成像固有地受到横向分辨率和对比度低的阻碍。由于孔径与深度的比率相对较高，因此可以使用超声波束的转向来克服浅表动脉成像中的这些限制。然而，在位于更大深度的动脉中，转向光束不会重叠以获得更大的转向角。在这项研究中，超声探头在腹部上进行物理平移，以在采集之间形成大角度，同时保持腹主动脉上的重叠。在一个体模设置和 11 名志愿者中，使用介于 –45° 和 +45° 之间的七个角度获取腹主动脉的二维横截面多视角超声图像。通过主动脉和脊柱的自动特征检测进行记录图像的自动配准。这种自动检测在 77 个图像集中的 62 个中成功。复合多视角图像显示志愿者在整个心脏周期内的对比度与噪声比从 0.6 ± 0.1 增加到 1.2 ± 0.2。