Dinio, John Dominique P
BSRT III
ULTRASONOGRAPHY
ACOUSTIC PARAMETERS
PERIOD of a wave is the time it takes a wave to vibrate a single cycle or time from the
start of a cycle to the next one.
It is also defines as the time it takes for one cycle to complete itself, or the completion of
one compression and one rarefaction.
The symbol is p or T.
The formula is
p = 1/f
The unit of measurement is seconds, for diagnostic ultrasound – microseconds. Typical
values are 0.1 to 0.5 microseconds.
The period is determined by the sound source and is not operator adjustable.
FREQUENCY is defined as the number of cycles per second, or the number of
particular events that occur in a specific duration of time.
Frequency – number of pressure oscillations
The symbol for frequency is f.
The unit for frequency is hertz, the diagnostic range is Mega Hertz.
And the formula for frequency:
f (MHz) = propagation speed/ λ or f = 1/p
1 cycle per second = 1 Hertz.
1,000 cycles per second = 1 KHz
1,000 000 cycles per second = 1 MHz
Diagnostic range is 2 – 16 MHz
Frequency is determined by the sound source.
Frequency is important because it affects penetration and image quality.
Some useful relationships:
1. frequency ↑ → period ↓
2. frequency ↑ → wavelength ↓
Dinio, John Dominique P
BSRT III
ULTRASONOGRAPHY
Period multiplied by frequency is always 1.
WAVELENGTH is defines as the length of space over which a cycle occurs
Wavelength – extent of 1 complete wave cycle; distance between 2 successive density
zones
Symbol for wavelength: λ
Unit for wavelength: mm (millimeters)
When a wave remains in one medium type the formula is:
λ=1/f
Wavelength of 1 MHz sound in soft tissue is 1.54 mm
Formula:
λ= PS/f
Wavelength is indirectly related to frequency and directly related to period.
Propagating Speed is the speed of wave traveling through a medium
Unit for propagating speed: mm/µs
Formula
PS = λ/f
It is determined by the medium. It varies through the different tissues in the body. It is
not affected by the nature of the sound wave.
The average propagating speed in soft tissue is 1540 m/s or 1.54 mm/us.
The propagating speed increases as follows: air, fat, water, blood etc.
It is determined primarily by the stiffness of the medium. Stiffer media have higher
sound speeds. It is lower in gasses, higher in liquids and highest in solids.
Dinio, John Dominique P
BSRT III
ULTRASONOGRAPHY
History of ultrasound
The first written document dealing with the use of waves in spatial orientation dates
back to 1794, when an Italian physicist Lazaro Spallanzani (“Opus coli di fisica”),
analyzed the basic mechanisms of the navigation of flying bats in the dark, and rightly
deduced that bats employed sound rather than light to orient themselves 7.
It was in 1880 when Galton created and produced the apparatus that was able to
produce the sound waves of a frequency of 40 hertz. The same year, the
brothers Jacques and Pierre Curie noted that electricity may be created in a crystal of
quartz under mechanical vibrating. This phenomenon was termed the piezoelectric
effect. The Curie brothers also discovered the inverse piezoelectric effect, the ability of
the liquid crystal to produce electricity under the vibrations produced by the ultrasound
wave.
Following the tragic sinking of the Titanic in 1912, scientific efforts were instigated to
develop a system to visualize underwater structures 7. The French government, during
the First World War, commissioned Paul Langevin, a French physicist, and colleagues,
to research the use of high-frequency sound waves to find German submarines.
Although their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, the American Navy was able to
develop SONAR (SOund Navigation And Ranging) on the back of Langevin's studies.
In 1928, SY Sokolov, a Soviet physicist, first proposed the idea of ultrasound to find
flaws deep in metal structures. Indeed the successful use of ultrasound in industry
predated its introduction into clinical medicine. These early sonographic methods in
industrial manufacture used "through transmission". A receiver on the opposing side of
the material to the ultrasound transmitter detected the sound waves as they passed
through the material under testing, creating 'shadows' that could be interpreted.
During the 1940s, efforts to use reflective techniques were made, which of course
required that the receiver was on the same side of the material as the
transmitter. Donald Sproule, a researcher working in England in 1941 created a
system in which the receiver was a separate device collecting the waves that had
bounced off the material. In 1944, Floyd Firestone, working in the US, received a
patent for the Reflectoscope, the first system in which the same transducer both
generated the ultrasound waves, and also detected the reflected waves, in the time
between transmitted wave pulses.
In 1947-1948, Karl Dussik, an Austrian physician, and his brother Friederick, a
physicist, introduced hyperphonography, a technique which used ultrasound to visualize
the cerebral ventricles. Unfortunately, W Guttner, working in Germany showed that the
apparent 'pictures' of ventricles were nothing of the kind, but instead represented
densities of different parts of the overlying skull! 7
George Ludwig, working at the Naval Military Research Institute, in the United States,
in 1949, carried out research into gallstones embedded in soft tissues, using a through
Dinio, John Dominique P
BSRT III
ULTRASONOGRAPHY
transmission technique. His pioneering investigations into the interactions between
ultrasonic waves and animal tissues, helped lay the foundations for the later successful
use of ultrasound in medical practice.
Ian Donald introduced the ultrasound in diagnostic and medicine in 1956, when he
used the one-dimensional A-mode (amplitude mode) to measure the parietal diameter
of the fetal head. Two years later, Donald and Brown presented the ultrasound image of
a female genital tumor. Brown invented the so-called “two-dimensional compound
scanner”, which enabled the examiner to visualize the density of the tissue, which is
often referred to as the turning point in the application of ultrasound in medicine.
The commercial use of ultrasound devices dates back to 1963 when the B mode
(“brightness mode”) devices were constructed, enabling the examiner to visualize the
two-dimensional image. In the mid-seventies, the “grey scale” was introduced (Kossoff,
Garrett) leading to the introduction of the real-time ultrasound scanners. A decade later
the Doppler effect served as the basis for the construction of the device that enabled the
visualization of blood circulation, color flow Doppler ultrasound.
Date Historical Achievement or Event
Physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani was the first to study echolocation among bats,
1794
which forms the basis for ultrasound physics.
Brothers Pierre and Jacques Currie discover piezoelectricity. Ultrasound transducers
1877
(probes) emit and receive sound waves by way of the piezoelectric effect.
Inspired by the sinking of the Titanic, Physicist Paul Langevin was commissioned to
invent a device that detected objects at the bottom of the sea. Laugevin invented a
1915
hydrophone – what the World Congress Ultrasound in Medical Education refers to as
the “first transducer”.
Sonography was used to treat members of European soccer teams as a form of
1920s-
physical therapy, to appease arthritic pain and eczema and to sterilize vaccines,
1940s
states Joan Baker who holds several ARDMS ultrasound certifications.
Neurologist Karl Dussik is credited with being the first to use sonography for medical
1942 diagnoses. He transmitted an ultrasound beam through the human skull in attempts of
detecting brain tumors.
George D. Ludwig, M.D., an Internist at the Naval Medical Research Institute,
1948
developed A-mode ultrasound equipment to detect gallstones.
Dinio, John Dominique P
BSRT III
ULTRASONOGRAPHY
Douglas Howry and Joseph Holmes, from the University of Colorado, were some of
1949- the leading pioneers of B-mode ultrasound equipment, including the 2D B-mode linear
1951 compound scanner. John Reid and John Wild invented a handheld B-mode device to
detect breast tumors.
Physician Inge Edler and Engineer C. Hellmuth Hertz performed the first successful
1953
echocardiogram by employing an echo test control device from a Siemens shipyard.
1958 Dr. Ian Donald incorporated ultrasound into the OB/GYN field of medicine.
Don Baker, Dennis Watkins, and John Reid designed pulsed Doppler ultrasound
1966
technology; their developments led to imaging blood flow in various layers of the heart.
The 1970s saw many developments including the continuous wave Doppler, spectral
1970s
wave Doppler and color Doppler ultrasound instruments.
Kazunori Baba of the University of Tokyo developed 3D ultrasound technology and
1980s
captured three-dimensional images of a fetus in 1986.
Professor Daniel Lichtenstein began incorporating lung and general sonography in
1989
intensive care units.
Starting in the 1980s, ultrasound technology became more sophisticated with
improved image quality and 3D imaging capabilities. These improvements continued
1990s
into the 1990s with the adoption of 4D (real time) capabilities. Ultrasound guided
biopsies (endoscopic ultrasounds) also began in the 1990s.
Just like personal communication devices are continuously evolving and becoming
more convenient, so are ultrasound technologies. A variety of compact, handheld
2000s –
devices have come onto the market in recent years. The iPhone now has a
present
telesonography app and NASA has developed a virtual guidance program for non-
sonographers to perform ultrasounds in space.
