Relative backscatter coefficient in medical diagnostic ultrasound
AssigneeSiemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
InventorYassin Labyed
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In backscatter coefficient imaging, a backscatter coefficient of one region of interest relative another region of interest is used to avoid calibration. The system effects are removed by using a frequency-dependent measure of the backscatter. The relative frequency-dependent backscatter coefficient is determined by an ultrasound scanner.
Claims14
A method for backscatter coefficient imaging with a medical diagnostic ultrasound scanner, the method comprising:
- identifying first and second regions of interest in a scan region of a patient, the first region positioned in a kidney and the second region positioned in a liver;
- receiving, from the medical diagnostic ultrasound scanner, ultrasound data representing acoustic echoes from the first and second regions, the ultrasound data comprising in-phase and quadrature data output from a receive beamformer of the medical diagnostic ultrasound scanner;
- calculating, by a transform processor of the medical diagnostic ultrasound scanner, first and second spectra for the first and second regions, respectively, from the ultrasound data as the in-phase and quadrature data;
- determining, by the transform processor, a relationship of the first spectrum with the second spectrum;
- and
- displaying, on a display, an indication of fatty liver disease as a slope of a line fit to the relationship over frequency or an intercept of the line fit to the relationship over frequency of the first spectrum relative to the second spectrum from the in-phase and quadrature or radio frequency data.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored therein data representing instructions executable by a programmed processor for backscatter coefficient ultrasound imaging, the storage medium comprising instructions for:
- measuring acoustic backscatter from different areas of a patient, the different areas comprising kidney and liver areas;
- transforming the acoustic backscatter from the different areas into frequency-dependent backscatter;
- determining a relative backscatter coefficient at one frequency from the frequency-dependent backscatter between the different areas;
- determining a value indicative of fatty liver disease from the relative backscatter coefficient;
- and
- displaying a slope or an intercept over frequency range of a line fit to the frequency dependent backscatter from the different areas.
A system for estimating frequency-dependent relative backscatter coefficient, the system comprising:
- a receive beamformer configured to output samples for different regions of a patient, the different regions being a liver region and a kidney region, the samples being in-phase and quadrature signals;
- a transform estimator configured to transform the in-phase and quadrature signals into frequency-dependent backscatter for the different regions, to calculate a ratio of the frequency-dependent backscatter of the different regions as the frequency-dependent relative backscatter coefficient, and to determine a slope or intercept over frequency range of a line fit to the frequency-dependent relative backscatter, the slope or intercept indicative of fatty liver disease;
- and
- a display configured to display an image showing the slope or intercept.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.