A new technique for improved spatial resolution in high frame rate color Doppler imaging

In ultrasound Color Doppler imaging, a grayscale B-mode image and a Doppler image representing velocities are overlaid to produce a color coded image of e.g. blood flow or myocardial movement. Normally, the B-mode and Doppler images are acquired at the same rate, resulting in trade offs between B-mode image quality and Doppler frame rate. In this work, we present a new scan sequencing technique for Color Doppler imaging, where the B-mode image is acquired at a lower frame rate than the Doppler scan. This is achieved by splitting the B-mode image in subscans which are acquired in between multiple scans of the entire Doppler image. In this way, a full width B-mode image with high spatial resolution is kept while the temporal resolution of the velocity information is increased. In this paper, application of the new technique in Tissue Velocity Imaging (TVI), is discussed, showing the potential for improving lateral beam density or temporal resolution in Color Doppler imaging.