An effective medium model for ultrasound blood characterization

Ultrasonic backscattered echoes from blood contain frequency-dependent information that can be used to obtain quantitative parameters reflecting the aggregation state of red blood cells (RBCs). A Structure Factor Model (SFM) adapted to dense media such as blood has been proposed by Savery and Cloutier (J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2001). However, the SFMcan hardly be implemented to estimate the structural aggregate parameters in the framework of an inverse problem formulation. That is why Yu and Cloutier (J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2007) recently developed the Structure Factor Size Estimator (SFSE) that uses a second-order Taylor expansion of the structure factor. But the SFSE parameterizes the frequency dependent backscatter coefficient (BSC) by two correlated physical parameters. The goal of this paper is to further develop this strategy by proposing a new scattering model that approximates the SFM.