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US 2012/0259224 A1Published application
Ultrasound Machine for Improved Longitudinal Tissue Analysis
OwnerMon-Ju Wu, William A. Sethares +1inventors
InventorsMon-Ju Wu, William A. Sethares, Ray Vanderby
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Abstract
An ultrasound machine provides for segmentation of tissue structure that may track isolated tissue structures over multiple frames of data taken over time. Analysis of the isolated tissue structure permits better discrimination of small differences between tissue structures such as may indicate tissue damage or disease.
Claims23
An ultrasonic apparatus comprising:
- an ultrasonic signal acquisition system adapted to transmit an ultrasonic signal into a body and to receive and measure the ultrasonic signal as modified by tissue of the body, the measurements providing a series of data points in at least two spatial dimensions;
- an electronic computer executing a stored program to receive measurements from the ultrasonic signal acquisition system to:
- (a) automatically identify a preliminary spatial division of the data points into internal data points within the tissue structure, external data points outside of the tissue structure, and at least some uncommitted intermediate data points between the internal and external data points;
- (b) determine at least one dividing criterion from the internal data points and external data points;
- (c) assign the uncommitted intermediate data points to one of the internal data points and external data points using the dividing criterion;
- and
- (d) determine a property of the tissue structure based on the combined value of internal data points after application of the dividing criterion.
4 more elements
A method of tissue analysis comprising the steps of:
- (a) transmitting an ultrasonic signal into a body;
- (b) receiving and measuring the ultrasonic signal as modified by tissue of the body, the measurements to produce a time series of data frames each comprising data points in at least two spatial dimensions at different times;
- (c) using an electronic computer to:
- (i) identify a tissue structure of interest within the body in different data frames;
- (ii) determine a change in an acoustic property of the tissue structure between data frames based on combined value of data points within the tissue structure.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.