Systems and Methods for Removing Noise-Induced Bias in Ultrasound Blood Flow Imaging

A method for removing a noise-induced bias from ultrasound data in order to reconstruct an image depicting blood flow in which the noise-induced bias is removed, the steps of the method comprising:

• (a) accessing with a computer system, ultrasound frame data comprising frames of ultrasound data acquired with different transmitting angles;
• (b) forming with the computer system:
• a first group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a first number of the frames of ultrasound data for the first group;
• a second group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a second number of the frames of ultrasound data for the second group;
• (c) reconstructing with the computer system:
• a first compounded image by compounding the frames of ultrasound data in the first group;
• a second compounded image by compounding the frames of ultrasound data in the second group;
• (d) producing with the computer system:
• first blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the first compounded image;
• second blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the second compounded image;
• (e) reconstructing a blood flow image with the computer system by computing a correlation between the first blood flow signal data and the second blood flow signal data, the blood flow image depicting blood flow in which noise-induced bias has been removed.