Images in motion

A fully digital 4D ultrasound system is set to provide a ‘next generation’ integrated solution for medical imaging applications, allowing practitioners to provide faster treatment and improve therapeutic success rates.

Developed by ADUMS, an IST funded project that ended in April 2005, the advanced high-quality imaging system will reportedly reduce diagnostic time. In addition, the technology uses off-the-shelf computer hardware, making it a much cheaper alternative to expensive, purpose-produced ultrasound machines.

“The whole process of ultrasound devices has been moved away from the traditional hardware and is now implemented in software,” said Dr Georgios Sakas, ADUMS project co-ordinator. “The hardware of the device creates mechanical waves and receives the echoes. Once the echoes are received, they are converted in digital form and the rest of the processing is performed by software.”

A 4D ultrasound takes multiple images in rapid succession, creating a three-dimensional motion video, which is invaluable for diagnosis purposes.

An important factor in ultrasound image processing is the beamformer, the part of the system that provides the focusing for the ultrasound beam. Dr Stergios Stergiopoulos, president of the Canadian National Medical Technologies, one of the project partners, maintains that even today’s most advanced medical ultrasound imaging systems suffer from very poor image resolution.