Assessment of cardiac function by new ultrasound imaging strategies: towards a reliable clinical routine

Project Information

ACOUSTIC

Grant agreement ID: 786027

DOI

10.3030/786027

Project closed

EC signature date 16 February 2018

Start date 1 May 2018

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 127 300,00

EU contribution

€ 127 300,00

Coordinated by

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ACOUSTIC (Assessment of cardiac function by new ultrasound imaging strategies: towards a reliable clinicalroutine)

Reporting period: 2018-05-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death in the world and have a tremendous impact on our society. Since major diseases (hypertension, congestive heart failure, ventricular dyssynchrony, coronary artery disease, and others) are associated with morphologic or functional changes of the left ventricle of the heart, cardiac imaging is critical in (early) diagnosis. Ultrasound imaging is very attractive as it can be applied bedside, has a good temporal resolution, operates in real-time, is relatively cheap and does not make use of ionizing radiation. Specifically, ultrasound imaging is used to assess the morphology of the heart, to check the blood flow in the chambers of the heart, and to detect the motion of the cardiac walls. However, in current two-dimensional (2D) imaging, the temporal resolution is insufficient to detect the heart dynamics. Moreover, although 2D US imaging is still prevalent in clinical practice, three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography is maturing, but the limited temporal resolution is even more severe than in 2D approaches.
The scientific objective of this project was the improvement of ultrasound diagnostics and prevention of cardiac diseases by developing an innovative ultrasound system for imaging at very high temporal and spatial resolution for both 2D and 3D echocardiography.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Mainly, the work performed during the project focused on:
1) Ultrasound image formation: new imaging strategies have been developed and implemented on an ultrasound research scanner to increase the temporal resolution of 2D and 3D echocardiography, demonstrating that high spatial and temporal resolution can be achieved also for wide field of views, thereby enhancing the diagnostic power of echocardiography.
2) Ultrasound signal processing: new processing approaches for color flow imaging and tissue Doppler imaging applications have been developed, demonstrating that blood flow, wall motion, and blood-wall interactions can be studied with unprecedented detail by exploiting advanced image formation techniques.
3) Real-time applications: some of the advanced developed techniques have been implemented in real-time on the ultrasound system we developed, demonstrating that they could be made accessible to clinicians by implementing them also on hardware currently available in commercial scanners.

During the project, results were disseminated by publishing on international journals (refer to publications), attending international conferences, organizing seminars, lectures and workshops.
International conferences:
BMT 2018 Biomedical Technology Conference, Aachen (Germany): 1 oral presentation
2018 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, Kobe (Japan): 2 oral and 4 poster presentations
The Artimino Conference on Medical Ultrasound Technology, Nijmegen (The Netherlands): 1 oral presentation
2019 International Congress on Ultrasonics, Bruges (Belgium): 1 oral presentation
2019 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, Glasgow (Scotland): 2 oral and 2 poster presentations

Invited Lectures:
“2D ultrasound sparse arrays for 3D cardiovascular imaging” for the course Ultrasound Technologies for Medical Applications at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Trento (Italy)
“High frame rate cardiovascular imaging towards clinical application” for the course Ultrasound Technologies for Medical Applications at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Trento (Italy)
“2D Ultrasound sparse arrays and real-time high frame rate systems for cardiovascular imaging” for the employees of the following Departments of Esaote S.p.A. (Florence, Italy): Global Ultrasound Transducer R&D, Ultrasound System R&D, Probe Operations, Software Engineering, Image Quality.

Workshops:
“The practical use of an advanced research ultrasound system” for the course Ultrasound Technologies for Medical Applications at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Trento (Italy)
“The use of an advanced research ultrasound system for high frame rate cardiac imaging” for the Bioengineering Laboratory of the Dept. of Industrial and Information Engineering of the University of Pavia (Italy)

Seminars:
“ACOUSTIC project: Assessment of cardiac function by new ultrasound imaging strategies towards a reliable clinical routine” for the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim, Norway)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We developed a unique system that implements innovative ultrasound imaging strategies, allowing:
1) the analysis of rapid cardiac events, which may help to unravel conduction disorders and to assess the contractile function of the heart;
2) the assessment of blood flow of the whole heart instead of a narrow region of interest, as currently in use, for a robust assessment of blood hemodynamics;
3) 3D echocardiography with high temporal resolution by the use of relatively low-cost hardware, which will boost research in this area thereby catalyzing critical developments in this field to enforce a true breakthrough of 3D US in the clinical routine.
Progresses are in line with the H2020 EU guidelines, that aim for the prevention of the disease through the development of preventive tools, as we developed an advanced technology system that will ease the prevention and the early diagnosis of cardiac diseases. In addition, the system exploited ultrasound technology that is cheaper than other imaging modalities: an increasingly important feature given the growing burden on the social security systems and the aging European population. Finally, the possible industrial applications resulting from the project will contribute to “boosting Europe's industrial leadership through research, technological development, demonstration and innovation”, well in accordance with the “Excellent science” and “Industrial leadership” priorities of H2020.

Comparison of different high temporal resolution techniques for blood flow estimation

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Real-time tissue Doppler imaging of the left ventricle in 4-chamber view

Real-time tri-plane echocardioraphy at high temporal resolution: in-vivo test.

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