Evgeny Ter-Ovanesyan, Ph.D.

Affiliate Research Scientist

Evgeny's work focused on ultrasound imaging of tissue perfusion by blood. Tissue perfusion, or blood flow in capillaries, is a very important clinical parameter. A drop in tissue perfusion below a critical level results in tissue injury, cell death, and impaired organ function. Although diagnostic ultrasound is commonly used for blood flow measurement, it is mainly restricted to the fast-moving blood in large vessels. Conventional signal processing methods employed in modern ultrasound scanners simply filter out all slow-motion signals assuming that slow motion corresponds to tissue and fast motion to blood.

We use another approach based on the difference between spatially correlated tissue motion and uncorrelated blood flow. We apply our processing algorithm offline to the raw ultrasound data acquired by a commercial ultrasound scanner with a research interface. We have qualitatively demonstrated that our method is capable of non-invasively measuring perfusion. Our data show a marked decrease in muscle perfusion following the application of a tourniquet and an increase in perfusion following exercise.