Automated ultrasound equipment and methods using enhanced navigator aids

A system for automated ultrasound examination of one or both of a patient's breasts, comprising:

• a source of a sonographic response acquired by chestwardly compressing a breast of a recumbent patient and scanning the compressed breast tissue with ultrasound emitted and received by an ultrasound transducer electrically and/or mechanically driven for a scanning motion relative to the breast;
• a programmed computer processor configured to apply computer image processing algorithms to the sonographic response thereby producing a three-dimensional (3D) structure representing ultrasound responses for volume elements (voxels) of the scanned breast;
• said processor being configured to apply computer processing algorithms to (i) segment out influences of non-breast tissue, (ii) find suspected tissue abnormalities in the 3D structure remaining after said segmenting, including by accounting for sonographic responses related to patches of plural voxels in and/or out of a suspected abnormality;
• said processor thereby producing a single navigator overview image per breast, and being configured to apply filtering algorithms enhancing representations of suspected abnormalities to thereby produce conspicuity enhancements of one or more of the found tissue abnormalities in each of the navigator overview images;
• and
• a computerized display configured to display each of the breast navigator overview images in association with one or more other images that are automatically selected and/or generated from the sonographic responses and include one or more representations of a selected abnormality found in the navigator overview image.

A system for automated ultrasound examination of a patient's breasts, comprising:

• a source of sonographic responses acquired by compressing the patient's breasts chestwardly while the patient is recumbent and scanning the compressed breast tissue with one or more sonographic transducers electrically or mechanically driven to scan the breasts;
• a programmed computer processor configured to apply computer image processing algorithms to the sonographic responses thereby producing a plurality of whole-breast navigator overview images each representing a three-dimensional breast volume with abnormalities therein found through filtering with said algorithms;
• said processor being configured to produce each of said plurality of whole-breast navigator overview images by (i) producing from said sonographic responses a three-dimensional (3D) structure representing volume elements (voxels) of scanned tissue, (ii) segmenting out influences of non-breast tissue in said sonographic responses and finding tissue abnormalities in remaining whole-breast 3D structure, including by comparing sonographic responses for portions of the breast with ultrasound responses for other portions of the breast and accounting for shape properties of potential abnormalities, and (iii) producing conspicuity enhancements of at least some of the found tissue abnormalities;
• a computerized display configured to display two or more of the plurality of whole-breast navigator overview images to a user, the processor being further being configured to respond to a selection by a user of region of interest (ROI) in a whole breast navigator overview image to cause a display of one or more other images generated from the sonographic response that are associated with the user-selected ROI.

A method of ultrasound examination of a patient's breast, comprising:

• compressing a patient's breast chestwardly while the patient is recumbent and
• scanning the breast with an ultrasound transducer through a gel-impregnated membrane in a scanning motion relative to the breast while sending ultrasound energy into the breast and receiving ultrasound energy from scanned tissue, thereby producing ultrasound responses for breast slices that conform to planes extending in chestward directions;
• applying computer processing to the ultrasound responses to thereby produce a three-dimensional (3D) structure representing sonographic response characteristics of volume elements (voxels) of scanned tissue;
• applying computer processing algorithms to at least one of (i) the ultrasound responses and (ii) the 3D structure to thereby segment out influences of selected scanned tissue and to find tissue abnormalities in the remaining 3D structure;
• applying further computer processing algorithms to the remaining 3D structure to thereby produce conspicuity enhancements of at least some of the found tissue abnormalities;
• applying further computer processing to the 3D structure to thereby produce two-dimensional (2D) breast navigator image depicting the scanned breast and abnormalities therein that have been enhanced;
• displaying a depiction of the 2D breast navigator image with abnormalities therein;
• and
• responding to an input regarding an abnormality in the 2D breast navigator image or the 3D structure by producing and concurrently displaying a pop-up depiction of the abnormality as it appears in one of said breast slices that conform to planes extending in chestward directions.