Systems and methods for vascular imaging

A method comprising:

• receiving a plurality of ultrasound images, wherein the plurality of ultrasound images are contrast enhanced ultrasound images;
• displaying at least one of the plurality of ultrasound images;
• receiving an indication of a region of interest (ROI) within the at least one of the plurality of ultrasound images, wherein the ROI includes less than an entirety of the at least one of the plurality of ultrasound images;
• processing a first set of the plurality of ultrasound images with a first processing technique, wherein the first processing technique is a contrast enhanced ultrasound processing technique;
• processing in the ROI a second set of the plurality of ultrasound images with a second processing technique, wherein the second processing technique has a higher spatial resolution and a lower temporal resolution than the first processing technique, wherein the second processing technique is a super resolution imaging (SRI) processing technique;
• calculating a confidence score based on a correlation map between two or more consecutive ultrasound images processed with the second processing technique, wherein the SRI processing technique comprises an accumulation of center positions of microbubbles from the contrast enhanced ultrasound processing technique and the confidence score is based on probability density calculations for the center positions of the microbubbles, and further wherein the generated confidence score indicates that at least one of a sufficient number of frames have been accumulated for generating the SRI image and an indication that motion during frame accumulation was sufficiently low;
• providing to the user the calculated confidence score and/or a qualitative indication of the confidence score;
• and
• displaying at least some of the plurality of ultrasound images processed with the first processing technique, the at least some of the plurality of ultrasound images processed with the second processing technique, and the calculated confidence score and/or the qualitative indication of the confidence score.

A non-transitory computer readable medium including instructions, that when executed, cause an ultrasound imaging system to:

• receive a plurality of ultrasound images, wherein the ultrasound images are contrast enhanced ultrasound images;
• display at least one of the plurality of ultrasound images;
• receive an indication of a region of interest (ROI) within the at least one of the plurality of ultrasound images, wherein the first ROI includes less than an entirety of the at least one of the plurality of ultrasound images;
• process a first set of the plurality of ultrasound images with a first processing technique, wherein the first processing technique is a contrast enhanced ultrasound processing technique;
• process in the ROI a second set of the plurality of ultrasound images with a second processing technique, wherein the second processing technique has a higher spatial resolution and a lower temporal resolution than the first processing technique, wherein the second processing technique is a super resolution imaging (SRI) processing technique;
• generate a confidence score based on a correlation map between two or more consecutive ultrasound images processed with the second processing technique, wherein the SRI processing technique comprises an accumulation of center positions of microbubbles from the contrast enhanced ultrasound processing technique and the confidence score is based on probability density calculations for the center positions of the microbubbles, and further wherein the generated confidence score indicates that at least one of a sufficient number of frames have been accumulated for generating the SRI image and an indication that motion during frame accumulation was sufficiently low;
• provide to the user the calculated confidence score and/or a qualitative indication of the confidence score;
• and
• display the at least some of the plurality of ultrasound images processed with the first processing technique and the at least some of the plurality of ultrasound images processed with the second processing technique.