Ultrasound blood flow imaging
AssigneeMayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
InventorsPengfei SONG, Armando MANDUCA, Shigao CHEN, Joshua TRZASKO
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Described here are systems and methods for imaging blood flow in a subject's vasculature, which may include small blood vessels, using ultrasound without the need for a contrast agent. A locally implemented low-rank matrix decomposition is used together with adaptive cutoff values to provide noninvasive ultrasound blood flow imaging capable of imaging the subject's vasculature with very high spatial and temporal resolution, and without the administration of contrast agents such as microbubble contrast agents. Thus, in some instances the systems and methods can be used to image blood flow in small vessels and tissue microvasculature with high spatial and temporal resolution.
Claims29
A method for generating an image that depicts blood flow in a subject's vasculature using an ultrasound imaging system, the steps of the method comprising:
- (a) acquiring ultrasound signal data from a field-of-view in a subject;
- (b) dividing the acquired ultrasound data into a plurality of ultrasound data submatrices each corresponding to a subvolume of the field-of-interest;
- (c) performing a low-rank matrix decomposition on each ultrasound data submatrix, thereby generating decomposed data that includes decomposed matrix values for each ultrasound data submatrix;
- (d) estimating at least one of a low-order cutoff value based on the decomposed data or a high-order cutoff value based on the decomposed data, wherein the low-order cutoff value differentiates signals attributable to tissue from signals attributable to blood flow and the high-order cutoff value differentiates signals attributable to blood flow from signal attributable to noise;
- (e) extracting signals that are attributable to blood flow in the subject's vasculature from each ultrasound data submatrix using the at least one of the low-order cutoff value or high-order cutoff value;
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- (f) combining the extracted signals to generate an image that depicts blood flow in the subject's vasculature in the field-of-view.
A method for generating an image that depicts blood flow in a subject's vasculature using an ultrasound imaging system, the steps of the method comprising:
- (a) acquiring ultrasound signal data from a field-of-view in a subject;
- (b) performing a low-rank matrix decomposition on the ultrasound data, thereby generating decomposed data that includes decomposed matrix values for the ultrasound data;
- (c) estimating at least one of a low-order cutoff value based on the decomposed data or a high-order cutoff value based on the decomposed data, wherein the low-order cutoff value differentiates signals attributable to tissue from signals attributable to blood flow and the high-order cutoff value differentiates signals attributable to blood flow from signal attributable to noise;
- (d) extracting signals that are attributable to blood flow in the subject's vasculature from the ultrasound data using the at least one of the low-order cutoff value or high-order cutoff value;
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- (e) generating an image that depicts blood flow in the subject's vasculature in the field-of-view based on the extracted signals.
28-47. (canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.