Blood noise reduction in intravascular ultrasound imaging

The newly developed lateral low pass filter significantly decreases the blood noise for blood speeds exceeding 50 centimeters per second in a 20 megahertz imaging process. This decrease is observed in all the arteries during in vitro conditions. In an in vivo condition, the blood noise is reduced only in the systole of peripheral arteries, while blood flow in coronary arteries remains unaffected. An increase in the frequency increases the blood noise reduction ratio.