The Separate Recovery of Spatial Fluctuations in Compressibility and Mass Density in Plane Wave Pulse-Echo Ultrasound Imaging

We investigated the separate recovery of spatial fluctuations in compressibility and mass density by plane wave pulse-echo ultrasound imaging based on sparse recovery (SR). Using simulated radio frequency (RF) data obtained from a sparse and a nonsparse object, we demonstrated that the recovery of space-resolved maps of both material parameters with small relative root mean-squared errors (RMSEs) was feasible. For a signal-to-noise ratio of 40 dB, the relative RMSEs were smaller than 4%. For noiseless RF data, recovery was flawless. Using real RF data acquired from a human common carotid artery (in vivo), the presented concept yielded two space-resolved maps emphasizing different features of the object.