Ultrasound microbubbles imaging (Guillaume Lajoinie, Univ. Twente, NL)

Microbubbles—defined as gas bubbles with radii below 5 micrometers—are unparalleled agents for both contrast enhancement and therapy in biomedical ultrasound. Their small size and complex behavior present numerous physical challenges, which simultaneously offer unique opportunities for advanced ultrasound imaging. In this presentation, I will discuss the design and microfluidic production of ultrasound contrast microbubbles, with particular emphasis on the nonlinear features that underpin their distinctive dynamics. I will show how these properties can be leveraged to address several timely challenges, including imaging arterial blood flow whose velocities exceed several meters per second, improving image contrast-to-noise ratio by more than a factor of two, increasing image resolution by up to a factor of 50 with the aid of deep learning, and probing material and tissue rheology. Despite these advances, progress remains constrained by the accuracy of existing bubble models...