System and method for visualization of tissue microvasculature using ultrasound
AssigneeMayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
InventorsAzra Alizad, Mahdi Bayat, Mostafa Fatemi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and systems for producing a visually-perceived representation of a sub-millimeter-sized blood vessel located at a depth of many centimeters in the biological tissue, in which the background clutter is suppressed (by at least 30 dB using SVT and additional 23 dB using a combination of morphology filtering and vessel enhancement filtering) as compared to an image obtained with the use of a B-mode ultrasound imaging, while at the same time maintaining the morphology of the blood vessel.
Claims13
A method for generating an image depicting tissue microvasculature using an ultrasound system, the steps of the method comprising:
- (a) acquiring ultrasound echo data from a region-of-interest in a subject with an ultrasound system, wherein the region-of-interest contains tissue microvasculature;
- (b) generating clutter removed data by performing a clutter removal algorithm on the ultrasound echo data, wherein the clutter removal algorithm is implemented with a hardware processor and a memory;
- (c) generating spectrum data by performing a temporal Fourier transform on the clutter removed data;
- (d) storing negative frequency data in the spectrum data as negative frequency spectrum data;
- (e) storing positive frequency data in the spectrum data as positive frequency spectrum data;
- (f) reconstructing a first image from the negative frequency spectrum data;
- (g) reconstructing a second image from the positive frequency spectrum data;
- and
- (h) generating a third image that depicts tissue microvasculature by combining the first image and the second image in order to reduce artifacts and noise.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.