Apparatus and method to guide ultrasound acquisition of the peripheral arteries in the transverse plane
AssigneeAtherosys, Inc.
InventorsRam L. Bedi, Todor Jeliaskov, Charles D. Emery, Ivan S. Mitzev
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An ultrasound imaging system for guiding a user to acquire ultrasound image data sets that can be analyzed for the presence of atherosclerosis. In one embodiment, the processor is programmed to analyze ultrasound image data for a vessel of interest and to control a user interface that suggests how an operator should move a transducer to acquire ultrasound image data with the vessel of interest in a desired location. The processor stores multiple ultrasound image data sets taken along a length of the vessel of interest to be analyzed for the presence of an atheroma.
Claims20
An ultrasound system for acquiring a sequence of ultrasound image data sets for the detection of an atheroma in an individuals, comprising:
- a transducer configured to direct ultrasound signals towards a vessel of interest and surrounding tissue and to detect corresponding echo signals from the vessel of interest and surrounding tissue;
- processing circuitry that is configured to execute program instructions to:
- produce ultrasound image data from the detected echo signals and analyze the image data to identify the vessel of interest and determine a location of the vessel of interest in the image data;
- control a user interface that indicates a direction to change the position or orientation of the transducer to position the vessel of interest in a desired location in the image data;
- store a sequence of ultrasound image data where the location of the vessel of interest is in the desired location in the image data.
The ultrasound system of claim 15, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to execute instructions to identify a bifurcation of the vessel of interest by skeletonizing the vessel of interest before and after a bifurcation point in the vessel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.