WE PROPOSE TO IMPLEMENT IN COMPUTER CODE, AND TEST BY COMPUTER SIMULATION, A NEW, FAST ULTRASOUND IMAGING AND TISSUE CHARACTERIZATION ALGORITHM, BASED ON OUR SOLUTION OF THE INVERSE SCATTERING PROBLEM, FOR APPLICATION TO MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS.

WE PROPOSE TO IMPLEMENT IN COMPUTER CODE, AND TEST BY COMPUTER SIMULATION, A NEW, FAST ULTRASOUND IMAGING AND TISSUE CHARACTERIZATION ALGORITHM, BASED ON OUR SOLUTION OF THE INVERSE SCATTERING PROBLEM, FOR APPLICATION TO MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS. IMPLEMENTATION OF OUR ALGORITHM WOULD PERMIT COMPUTATION OF THE INVERSE SCATTERING SOLUTION OF THE EXACT (NOT LINEARIZED) HELMHOLTZ WAVE EQUATION FOR A VISCO-ELASTIC FLUID MODEL OF TISSUE WITH INHOMOGENEOUS DENSITY (D), SPEED OF SOUND (C), AND ABSORPTION (A), PROPERTIES. THIS IMAGE SOLUTION IS ROBUST (NOISE TOLERANT AND STABLE), HAS EXTREMELY HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION APPROACHING 1/2 TO 1/4 MM (I.E., NEAR 1/2 WAVE LENGTH), AND PROVIDES HIGHLY ACCURATE QUANTITATIVE IMAGES OF THE ABOVE DEFINED TISSUE PARAMETERS D, C, AND A. THIS IS AN IMPROVEMENT OF A FACTOR OF 4 TO 8 OVER PRESENT NONQUANTITATIVE B-SCAN TECHNOLOGY. DURING PHASE I WE PROPOSE TO SIMULATE SCATTERING DATA FROM A RESOLUTION PHANTOM AND FROM A BLOOD VESSEL SURROUNDED WITH TYPICAL TISSUES. THE PERFORMANCE OF THE ALGORITHM WILL BE EVALUATED IN TERMS OF ACCURACY, RESOLUTION, ROBUSTNESS, AND CONVERGENCE RATE. THESE RESULTS WOULD BE EVALUATED USING LABORATORY DATA FROM REAL ORGANS AND A NEW CLINICAL