Three-Dimensional Photoacoustic Tomography using Delay Multiply and Sum Beamforming Algorithm

TL;DR

This paper introduces the DMAS beamforming algorithm for 3D photoacoustic imaging, demonstrating significant improvements over DAS in image quality, SNR, and resolution.

Contribution

The paper proposes using the delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS) algorithm for 3D PAI, showing it outperforms DAS in image clarity and quantitative metrics.

Findings

DMAS improves image resolution and sidelobe suppression.

DMAS enhances SNR by approximately 25 dB.

DMAS reduces FWHM to about 0.2 mm.

Abstract

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI), is a promising medical imaging technique that provides the high contrast of the optical imaging and the resolution of ultrasound (US) imaging. Among all the methods, Three-dimensional (3D) PAI provides a high resolution and accuracy. One of the most common algorithms for 3D PA image reconstruction is delay-and-sum (DAS). However, the quality of the reconstructed image obtained from this algorithm is not satisfying, having high level of sidelobes and a wide mainlobe. In this paper, delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS) algorithm is suggested to overcome these limitations in 3D PAI. It is shown that DMAS algorithm is an appropriate reconstruction technique for 3D PAI and the reconstructed images using this algorithm are improved in the terms of the width of mainlobe and sidelobes, compared to DAS. Also, the quantitative results show that DMAS improves signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) for about 25 dB and 0.2 mm, respectively, compared to DAS.