Ultrasound computer tomography

Unlike conventional ultrasound sonography, which uses phased array technology for beamforming, most USCT systems utilize unfocused spherical waves for imaging.

Successfully realization of USCT systems in the last decades was possible through the continuously growing availability of computing power and data bandwidth provided by the digital revolution.

Another aperture approach is a ring of transducers,[9] sometimes with the degree of freedom of motorized lifting for gathering additional information over the height for 3D imaging ("stacking").

Tomographic reconstruction methods used in USCT systems for transmission information based imaging are classical inverse radon transform and fourier slice theorem and derived algorithms (cone beam etc.).

For high-resolution and speckle noise reduced reflectivity imaging Synthetic Aperture Focusing Techniques (SAFT), similar to radar's SAR and sonar's SAS, are widely used.

Iterative wave equation inversion approaches as imaging method coming from the seismology are under academic research, but usage for real world applications is due to the enormous computational and memory burden still a challenge.

As USCT setups are fixed or motor moved without direct contact with the breast the reproduction of images is easier as with common, manually guided methods (e.g.