Short-Acquisition Contrast-Free Super-Resolution Microvascular Imaging in Rabbit Kidney
Ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) enables micrometer-scale microvascular imaging by localizing and tracking intravascular microbubbles, but its dependence on exogenous contrast agents and long acquisition times limits clinical translation. This study presents a high-frame-rate contrast-free super-resolution ultrasound microvascular imaging method based on high-frequency ultrafast ultrasound and nonlinear beamforming of backscatter signals from native blood flow. Using only 125 milliseconds of in vivo ultrafast data per image, the proposed method achieved an imaging frame rate of 8 frames/s in a rabbit kidney model. The reconstructed microvascular images resolved vessels with a global spatial resolution of 22.2 um over a field of view of 23.04 x 15.18 mm2, where the wavelength of ultrasound was 67.5 um. This corresponds to a three-fold improvement over conventional power Doppler imaging under the same acquisition duration. Compared with conventional flow imaging, the proposed method provided improved microvascular contrast and finer vessel delineation without microbubble injection. These results demonstrate a practical pathway toward high frame rate, contrast-free super-resolution ultrasound imaging for microvascular assessment.