Diffraction source compensation in medical diagnostic ultrasound viscoelastic imaging
AssigneeSiemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
InventorsYassin Labyed, Liexiang Fan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In viscoelastic imaging with ultrasound, the shear wave speed or other viscoelastic parameter is measured by tracking at the ARFI focal or other high-intensity location relative to the ARFI transmission. Rather than tracking the shear wave, the tissue response to ARFI is measured. A profile of displacements over time or a spectrum thereof is measured at the location. By finding a scale of the profile resulting in sufficient correlation with a calibration profile, the shear wave speed or other viscoelastic parameter may be estimated.
Claims20
A method for viscoelastic imaging with a medical diagnostic ultrasound scanner, the method comprising:
- transmitting from a transducer an acoustic radiation force impulse by the ultrasound scanner as a transmit beam with a beam profile along a scan line;
- measuring, by a receive beamformer of the ultrasound scanner, displacements as a function of time within the beam profile along the scan line, at least some of the displacements responsive to the acoustic radiation force impulse;
- generating, by an image processor, a first profile from the displacements for a first location;
- calculating, by the image processor, a scale weighting of the first profile relative to a reference profile;
- estimating, by the image processor, a viscoelastic characteristic based on the scale weighting;
- and
- generating on a display an image of the viscoelastic characteristic.
A system for viscoelastic imaging, the system comprising:
- a transmit beamformer configured to transmit an acoustic pushing pulse to a focal region in a patient;
- a receive beamformer configured to output samples for the focal region of the patient;
- an image processor configured to estimate shear wave speed at the focal region from the samples without tracking a shear wave in the patient;
- and
- a display configured to display the shear wave speed.
A method for viscoelastic imaging with a medical diagnostic ultrasound scanner, the method comprising:
- tracking, by a beamformer of the ultrasound scanner, displacements along an axis of excitation of an acoustic radiation force impulse in a tissue of a patient, the displacements caused by the acoustic radiation force impulse;
- estimating, by an image processor of the ultrasound scanner, a viscoelastic parameter from the displacements along the axis and displacements from a phantom with a known viscoelastic value;
- and
- transmitting the viscoelastic parameter.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.