High-frequency ultrasound backscattering by blood: analytical and semianalytical models of the erythrocyte cross section

This paper proposes analytical and semianalytical models of the ultrasonic backscattering cross section (BCS) of various geometrical shapes mimicking a red blood cell (RBC) for frequencies varying from 0 to 90 MHz. By assuming the first-order Born approximation and by modeling the shape of a RBC by a realistic biconcave volume, different scattering behaviors were identified for increasing frequencies. For frequencies below 18 MHz, a RBC can be considered a Rayleigh scatterer. For frequencies less than 39 MHz, the general concept of acoustic inertia tensor is introduced to describe the variation of the BCS with the frequency and the incidence direction. For frequencies below 90 MHz, ultrasound backscattering by a RBC is equivalent to backscattering by a cylinder of height 2 microm and diameter 7.8 microm. These results lay the basis of ultrasonic characterization of RBC aggregation by proposing a method that distinguishes the contribution of the individual RBC acoustical characteristics from collective effects, on the global blood backscattering coefficient. A new method of data reduction that models the frequency dependence of the ultrasonic BCS of micron-sized weak scatterers is also proposed. Applications of this method are in tissue characterization as well as in hematology.