Abstract
Breast cancer screening is based on X-ray mammography, while ultrasound is
considered a complementary technique with improved detection in dense
tissue. However, breast cancer screening requires a technique that
provides repeatable results at the inspection interval which cannot be
achieved with manual breast exploration.
During the last years there have appeared several approaches to overcome this
limitation by means of automated ultrasonic tomography performed with
motorized probes or with a large set of array transducers.
This work addresses these problems by considering a quite simple and low-cost
arrangement, formed with a ring of conventional medical-grade array probes
which are multiplexed to the electronics to build Full Angle Spatially
Compounded (FASC) images. The work analyzes the performance of such
arrangement in terms of resolution and isotropy, showing by numerical
modelling and experimentally that it provides high resolution and
homogeneity in the whole imaged region.
The implementation of this technique would provide more than one circular FASC
per second and a whole breast volume image in 1–2 minutes with
conventional technology, a process fast enough to be clinically useful.
Moreover, the automated technique is repeatable and can be used by the
clinician to perform immediately the diagnosis without requiring
additional data processing.
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