Abstract
Ultrasound instrumentation is widely employed in everyday clinical practice. Skilled operators, usually trained sonographers, operate the echograph and the ultrasonic probe to acquire B-mode images showing internal tissues/organs morphology, and echo-Doppler images with detailed information about blood flow. Unfortunately, skilled personnel are not always available, in particular in points-of-care distributed in rural areas or developing countries. Echographic systems capable of being operated from non-trained users can be valuable. In this work, an automatic blind procedure for detecting the position of the carotid artery is proposed. The untrained user places the probe transversally on the patient neck and starts the procedure. The machine automatically detects the carotid lumen in the B-mode image and selects its center, which can be used to extract Echo-Doppler data. The method was implemented in the ULA-OP experimental scanner and tested on healthy volunteers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Evans DH, McDicken WN (2000) Doppler ultrasound physics, instrumentation and signal processing. Wiley, Chichester. ISBN: 978-0471970019
Urban G, Vergani P, Ghidini A, Tortoli P, Ricci S, Patrizio P, Paidas MJ (2007) State of the art: non-invasive ultrasound assessment of the uteroplacental circulation. Semin Perinatol 31(4):232–239. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.semperi.2007.06.002
Grant E, Benson C, Moneta G et al (2003) Carotid artery stenosis: gray-scale and doppler US diagnosis—society of radiologists in ultrasound consensus conference. Radiology 229(2):340–346. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2292030516
Huang CC, Lee PY, Chen PY, Liu TY (2012) Design and implementation of a smartphone-based portable ultrasound pulsed-wave doppler device for blood flow measurement. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 59(1):182–188. https://doi.org/10.1109/tuffc.2012.2171
Duda RO, Hart PE (1972) Use of the Hough transformation to detect lines and curves in pictures. Commun ACM 15(1):11–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/361237.361242
Tortoli P, Bassi L, Boni E, Dallai A, Guidi F, Ricci S (2009) ULA-OP: an advanced open platform for ultrasound research. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 56(10):2207–2216, https://doi.org/10.1109/tuffc.2009.1303
Tortoli P, Guidi G, Pignoli P (1993) Transverse Doppler spectral analysis for a correct interpretation of flow sonograms. Ultrasound Med Biol 19(2):115–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/0301-5629(93)90003-7
Di Palma V et al (2019) “Medical assistance in contextual awareness” (AMICO): a project for a better cardiopathic patients quality of care. In: Proceedings of IEEE international workshop on advances in sensors and interfaces (IWASI), Otranto, June 2019. https://doi.org/10.1109/iwasi.2019.8791308
Ricci S, Ramalli A, Bassi L, Boni E, Tortoli P (2018) Real-time blood velocity vector measurement over a 2D region. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 65(2):201–209. https://doi.org/10.1109/tuffc.2017.2781715
Song I, Yoon J, Kang J, Kim M, Jang WS, Shin NH, Yoo Y (2019) Design and implementation of a new wireless carotid neckband Doppler system with wearable ultrasound sensors: preliminary results. Appl Sci 9:2202. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9112202
Acknowledgements
Authors thank Prof. Piero Tortoli for the valuable advices that contributed to improve the paper. This work is part of the AMICO project funded from the National Programs (PON) of the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR): code ARS01_00900 (Decree n. 1989, 26 July 2018).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Matera, R., Ricci, S. (2020). Automatic Detection of the Carotid Artery Position for Blind Echo-Doppler Blood Flow Investigation. In: Saponara, S., De Gloria, A. (eds) Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society. ApplePies 2019. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 627. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37277-4_61
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37277-4_61
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37276-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37277-4
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)