A real vessel phantom for flow imaging: 3-D Doppler ultrasound of steady flow

Vascular phantoms are used to assess the capabilities of various imaging te chniques, such as x-ray CT and angiography, and B-mode, power Doppler, and colour Doppler ultrasound (US). They should, therefore, accurately mimic th e vasculature, blood, and surrounding tissue, in regard to both imaging pro perties and vessel geometry. In the past, a variety of walled and wall-less vessel models have been used. However, these models only approximate the t rue vessel geometry, and generally lack pathologic features such as plaques or calcifications. To amend these deficiencies, we have developed a real v essel phantom for US and x-ray studies, which comprises a fixed human vesse l specimen, cannulated onto two acrylic tubes, and embedded in agar in an a crylic box. Earlier, we demonstrated a good overall correlation between x-r ay angiography, CT, and 3-D B-mode US images of this phantom. Here, we exte nd its use to flow imaging with 3-D power and 3-D colour Doppler US. (E-mai l: afenster@irus.rri.on.ca) (C) 2001 World Federation for Ultrasound in Med icine & Biology.