Abstract:
For over 30 years, ultrasonic imaging, based on the same pulse-echo principles as radar and sonar, has played an important role in diagnostic medicine. In many ways ultrasound is an ideal diagnostic tool---noninvasive, nontraumatic, capable of producing real-time images, and as all available data indicate, apparently safe at the acoustical intensities and duty cycles encountered in existing diagnostic equipment. Here the objective is to provide a snapshot of the present state of medical ultrasound and to assess the future prospects of this technology from ongoing research activities. Innovations such as Doppler analysis and cross-correlation techniques to measure flow, phased array transducers, contrast agents, tissue characterization, and, in particular, quantitative imaging methods based on unique reconstruction techniques will, it is believed, greatly increase the clinical utility of ultrasound as well as maintain a continued high rate of growth in the marketplace.