Development of advanced medical ultrasound systems

Abstract

Nowadays, medical ultrasound technologies are indispensable for both screening and work-up in different fields of clinical medicine because they are noninvasive, real-time, easy-to-use and low-cost. In particular, for the last ten years, the quality of medical ultrasound images has been markedly improved with technological innovations represented by a digital beamformer and a matrix array probe. Moreover, medical ultrasound imaging is becoming a more useful modality for clinical diagnosis owing to the recent practical use of tissue elasticity imaging for tissue characterization in addition to conventional B-mode imaging for morphological diagnosis and a Doppler method for circulatory evaluation. The principle and features of medical ultrasound imaging are discussed in this paper.