Ultrasonic diagnostic micro-vascular imaging
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorsDavid Hope Simpson, Jeffry E. Powers, Michael Schauf, Cyrille Villet
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus are described for ultrasonically imaging tiny blood vessels with the aid of a contrast agent. The locations of microbubbles of the contrast agent are detected in a series of images as the microbubbles move through the blood vessels. These images are temporally processed to identify the moving microbubbles, and persistence processed to depict images which show the tracks followed by the microbubbles through the blood vessels. A maximum intensity persistence can be used to show the steady buildup of microbubble tracks through the vasculature, or a slow decay employed so that the tracks will fade to black over time.
Claims21
A method for ultrasonically imaging with an ultrasonic contrast agent comprising:
- transmitting pulses to an image region of a subject;
- receiving echoes from a contrast agent in the image region in response to the transmitted pulses;
- detecting the location of a contrast agent in the image region at a given point in time;
- and
- producing an image showing the locations of the contrast agent at different points in time.
A method for ultrasonically imaging with an ultrasonic contrast agent comprising:
- producing a first data set of the location of a moving contrast agent at a first time;
- producing a second data set of the location of the moving contrast agent at a second time;
- and
- producing an image for display which depicts the locations of the moving contrast agent at the first and second times.
A method for ultrasonically imaging with an ultrasonic contrast agent comprising:
- producing a first data set of the location of a moving harmonic contrast agent at a first time;
- producing a second data set of the location of the moving harmonic contrast agent at a second time;
- and
- producing an image for display which depicts a track of the locations of the moving harmonic contrast agent at different points in time.
An ultrasonic imaging system for harmonic contrast imaging comprising:
- an array transducer which interrogates an image field containing a moving contrast agent;
- a receiver coupled to the array transducer which produces coherent echo signals from the moving contrast agent;
- an image processor coupled to the receiver which produces images showing the locations of the moving contrast agent at different points in time;
- an inter-frame high pass filter coupled to the image processor;
- a persistence processor coupled to the inter-frame high pass filter which produces images depicting the locations of the moving contrast agent at earlier points in time;
- and
- an image display.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.