Elimination of specific transducer influence on signals from intravascular ultrasonic catheters

A new method for elimination of transducer specific influences on spectral estimation is suggested. The measurement of reference data sets during catheter preparation was carried out. The IVUS echo signals derived from tissue mimicking materials could be corrected in terms of subtraction of reference and IVUS data spectra successfully. Further improvement of signal quality could be achieved by bandpass filtering of the corrected signal. In this way a standardised data basis was created, which allows time-frequency analysis of intravascular echo signals to classify different tissue types of atherosclerotic vessels.