Translation of ultrasound array responsive to anatomical orientation
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips N.V.
InventorsDavid Nigel Roundhill, Jeffrey Scott Hart
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A medical imaging system configured to analyze an acquired image to determine the imaging plane and orientation of the image. The medical imaging system may be further configured to determine a location of an aperture to acquire a key anatomical view and transmit instructions to a controller to move the aperture to the location. A sonographer may not need to move the ultrasound probe for the medical imaging system to move the aperture to the location. An ultrasound probe may include a transducer array that may have one or more degrees of freedom of movement within the probe. The transducer array may be translated by one or more motors that receive instructions from the controller to position the aperture.
Claims22
A medical imaging system comprising code stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium, which when executed by a processor, causes the system to:
- acquire a first ultrasound image of at least one anatomical feature;
- segment the acquired first ultrasound image of the at least one anatomical feature;
- determine an orientation of the at least one anatomical feature within the first ultrasound image;
- determine, by a trained analyzer, the orientation of the at least one anatomical feature within the first ultrasound image to be sufficient or insufficient without requiring a template or an image from another imaging modality;
- calculate a position for an ultrasound acoustic aperture to obtain a second ultrasound image of the at least one anatomical feature in response to a determination by the trained analyzer of the orientation of the at least one anatomical feature within the first ultrasound image to be insufficient;
- and
- move the ultrasound acoustic aperture to the position to acquire the second ultrasound image.
A method, comprising:
- receiving an acquired ultrasound image of at least one anatomical feature at a medical imaging system;
- segmenting the acquired ultrasound image of the at least one anatomical feature;
- analyzing an orientation of the at least one anatomical feature within the acquired ultrasound image with a processor of the medical imaging system;
- calculating, with the processor, a position of an ultrasound acoustic aperture to acquire a desired orientation of the at least one anatomical feature within a scan plane of the ultrasound acoustic aperture in response to an undesired orientation of the at least one anatomical feature within the acquired ultrasound image without requiring a template or an image from another imaging modality;
- calculating, with the processor, a movement of an ultrasound array to move the ultrasound acoustic aperture to the position;
- and
- transmitting instructions from the processor to a controller to move the aperture to the position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.