Doppler ultrasound system for diagnosing carotid stenosis

A Doppler ultrasound system for diagnosis of a carotid artery comprising:

• a probe that comprises a two dimensional non-phased transducer array of ultrasound transducer elements arranged in rows and columns of transducer elements, the transducer elements further being canted at a Doppler angle away from orthogonal to the carotid artery when the probe is disposed over the carotid artery, the transducer elements disposed in an overlying layer of transducer lens material;
• a beamformer coupled to the transducer elements of the non-phased transducer array and adapted to (i) independently actuate each transducer element, in a firing sequence of the transducer elements, to transmit pulses into a body in a pulsed wave mode and sequentially cover a range of depths and (ii) to receive Doppler signals independently from beneath each transducer element in response to the transmitted pulses, wherein the pulse wave mode provides depth resolution of the received Doppler signals;
• a Doppler processor, coupled to the beamformer and responsive to the received Doppler signals for producing Doppler values for each transducer element;
• a spectral Doppler processor, responsive to the Doppler values for producing a spectral Doppler profile;
• a peak systolic velocity (PSV) estimator responsive to the Doppler values, which produce estimates of peak systolic velocity;
• a turbulence estimator, responsive to the spectral Doppler profile, for producing estimates of flow turbulence;
• and
• a stenosis detector for producing an indication of stenosis as a function of (i) peak systolic velocity estimates and (ii) turbulence estimates.