Systems and methods for removing noise-induced bias in ultrasound blood flow imaging
AssigneeMayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
InventorsJoshua D. Trzasko, Shigao Chen, Chengwu Huang, Pengfei Song, Armando Manduca
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods for removing the bias induced by noise from power Doppler images to achieve improvements of microvessel image contrast are provided. In one example, the noise-induced bias can be suppressed by utilizing the characteristics of uncorrelated noise in the ultrasound image from data acquired or compounded at different transmitting angles. In another example, the noise-induced bias can be suppressed due to the lack of correlation between adjacent ultrasound images. These example implementations may also be combined, as will be described below.
Claims30
A method for removing a noise-induced bias from ultrasound data in order to reconstruct an image depicting blood flow in which the noise-induced bias is removed, the steps of the method comprising:
- (a) accessing with a computer system, ultrasound frame data comprising frames of ultrasound data acquired with different transmitting angles;
- (b) forming with the computer system:
- a first group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a first number of the frames of ultrasound data corresponding to a first plurality of transmitting angles selected from the different transmitting angles for the first group;
- a second group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a second number of the frames of ultrasound data corresponding to a second plurality of transmitting angles selected from the different transmitting angles for the second group;
- (c) reconstructing with the computer system:
- a first compounded image by compounding the frames of ultrasound data in the first group;
- a second compounded image by compounding the frames of ultrasound data in the second group;
- (d) producing with the computer system:
- first blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the first compounded image;
- second blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the second compounded image;
- (e) reconstructing a blood flow image with the computer system by computing a correlation between the first blood flow signal data and the second blood flow signal data, the blood flow image depicting blood flow in which noise-induced bias has been removed.
A method for removing a noise-induced bias from ultrasound data in order to reconstruct an image depicting blood flow in which the noise-induced bias is removed, the steps of the method comprising:
- (a) accessing with a computer system, ultrasound data acquired with an ultrasound system;
- (b) forming with the computer system:
- a first group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a first number of frames of the ultrasound data for the first group;
- a second group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a second number of frames of the ultrasound data for the second group;
- wherein the first group of ultrasound frame data comprise frames of the ultrasound data that are temporally adjacent to frames of the ultrasound data in the second group of ultrasound frame data;
- (c) reconstructing with the computer system:
- a first image from the ultrasound data in the first group;
- a second image from the ultrasound data in the second group;
- (d) producing with the computer system:
- first blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the first image;
- second blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the second image;
- (e) reconstructing a blood flow image with the computer system by computing a correlation between the first blood flow signal data and the second blood flow signal data, the blood flow image depicting blood flow in which noise-induced bias has been removed based on temporal coherence of blood flow signals in the first and second blood flow signal data and lack of correlation of noise signals in the first and second blood flow signal data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.