Clinical Application of a New Ultrasound Technique: Microvascular Imaging of the Liver

Microvascular imaging is a new ultrasound technique aiming to image and quantify the microvasculature, comprising arterioles, venules, and maybe even capillaries. The technique uses an advanced clutter filter to eliminate artifacts caused by breathing and movement and retains the low-speed blood signals in microvessels. The great advantage of microvascular imaging in ultrasonography is that it allows a physician intuitively to detect very slow blood signals in microvessels, providing additional information about flow distribution in the target area without the use of contrast media. This technical advance in ultrasonography will improve diagnosis in various clinical situations. In this review, we focus on microvascular imaging in the liver.