# Clutter Suppression in Echocardiography Using Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging

> **NIH NIH R01** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $454,191

## Abstract

Abstract
 Echocardiography is an excellent tool for visualizing heart anatomy and function, however
inadequate and suboptimal visualization of the heart is becoming problematic as the overweight and
obese population in the United States has increased dramatically over the last two decades.
Inadequate or suboptimal visualization of the heart leads to increased exam time, decreased patient
throughput, diminished quality or indeterminate diagnosis, and possible referral of the patient to other
imaging procedures. These additional and alternative imaging methods can increase the costs
associated with care and can potentially require the patient to have invasive or hazardous imaging
procedures.
 We have previously developed a new ultrasonic imaging method, called Harmonic Spatial
Coherence (HSC) imaging, that greatly enhances image quality by suppressing noise in the ultrasound
image that is typically encountered in difficult-to-image patients. This is particularly important to
echocardiography, in which diagnoses of cardiac anatomy and function are unobtainable in 12–64% of
conventional echocardiograms. We have previously developed a prototype ultrasound imaging system
that can display HSC images in real-time and have used this system to show that HSC imaging is
vastly superior to conventional tissue harmonic imaging (THI) in visualizing the interior borders of the
heart (i.e. the endocardium).
 In this project, we propose to translate our HSC imaging technique to clinical use in
echocardiography by developing techniques to enable HSC imaging on a modern clinical ultrasound
system. We propose to utilize this system in a large clinical study over two institutions to demonstrate
its utility in clinically meaningful tasks and measurements. In addition, we propose development of
several strategies that will enable easier implementation of this technique on modern ultrasound
scanners. These strategies will reduce its computational burden and enable it to be applied to a wide
array of modern scanners. In addition, these strategies should allow HSC to be applied to 3D
echocardiography, an increasingly utilized modality due to the availability of high-quality matrix
transducers. The outcome of this work will yield an imaging solution for the difficult-to-image patient
that can be rapidly deployed across modern ultrasound imaging systems and echocardiography clinics.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9870923
- **Project number:** 5R01EB013661-08
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Jeremy Dahl
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $454,191
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2012-04-01 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9870923

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9870923, Clutter Suppression in Echocardiography Using Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging (5R01EB013661-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9870923. Licensed CC0.

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