A tomographic multiview-multistatic ultrasound system for biomedical imaging applications

Medical imaging is a paramount concern in modern society. Thus, there is an increasing interest and attention to new imaging modalities which can support standard exams and/or replace them in diseases diagnosis. In this framework, ultrasound tomography could have an important role for some biomedical applications, such as for breast cancer imaging, since it would allow to overcome some limitations related to standard ultrasound exams which are operator-dependent and usually are not based on a coherent processing, reducing the reconstruction performance considerably. To this aim, in this article a preliminary air-based ultrasound tomographic imaging system is described and tested. The prototype was designed, built and tested at the University of Naples Parthenope with the aim of providing some interesting data sets for testing and comparison of imaging algorithms in a laboratory-controlled environment, which represents a mandatory step before moving to the realistic case of a water-matched device.