In vivo imaging of ocular blood flow using high-speed ultrasound

Clinical ophthalmic ultrasound is currently performed with mechanically scanned, single-element probes, but these are unable to provide useful information about blood flow with Doppler techniques. Linear arrays are well-suited for the detection of blood flow, but commercial systems generally exceed FDA ophthalmic safety limits. A high-speed plane-wave ultrasound approach with an 18-MHz linear array was utilized to characterize blood flow in the orbit and choroid. Acoustic intensity was measured and the plane-wave mode was within FDA limits. Data were acquired for up to 2 sec and up to 20,000 frames/s with sets of steered plane-wave transmissions that spanned 2*theta degrees where 0 degrees was normal to the array. Lateral resolution was characterized using compounding from 1 to 50 transmissions and -6-dB lateral beamwidths ranged from 320 to 180 mu m, respectively. Compounded high-frame-rate data were post-processed using a singular value decomposition spatiotemporal filter and then flow was estimated at each pixel using standard Doppler processing methods. A 1-cm diameter rotating scattering phantom and a 2-mm diameter tube with a flow of blood-mimicking fluid were utilized to validate the flow-estimation algorithms. In vivo data were obtained from the posterior pole of the human eye which revealed regions of flow in the choroid and major orbital vessels supplying the eye.