Numerical study on lung ultrasound B-line formation as a function of imaging frequency and alveolar geometries

Lung ultrasound (LUS) has become a widely adopted diagnostic method for several lung diseases. However, the presence of air inside the lung does not allow the anatomical investigation of the organ. Therefore, LUS is mainly based on the interpretation of vertical imaging artifacts, called B-lines. These artifacts correlate with several pathologies, but their genesis is still partly unknown. Within this framework, this study focuses on the factors affecting the artifacts' formation by numerically simulating the ultrasound propagation within the lungs through the toolbox k-Wave. Since the main hypothesis behind the generation of B-lines relies on multiple scattering phenomena occurring once acoustic channels open at the lung surface, the impact of changing alveolar size and spacing is of interest. The tested domain is of size 4 cm × 1.6 cm, the investigated frequencies vary from 1 to 5 MHz, and the explored alveolar diameters and spacing range from 100 to 400 μm and from 20 to 395 μm, respectively. Results show the strong and entangled relation among the wavelength, the domain geometries, and the artifact visualization, allowing for better understanding of propagation in such a complex medium and opening several possibilities for future studies.