Methods and systems for thermal monitoring of tissue with an ultrasound imaging system

A method, comprising:

• acquiring, with an ultrasound probe, an ultrasound image;
• converting a region of interest in the ultrasound image to a plurality of signals;
• decomposing each signal of the plurality of signals into a plurality of frequency bands;
• generating an estimate for each decomposed signal with an autoregressive model for each frequency band of the plurality of frequency bands;
• measuring a correlation of the estimate for each decomposed signal with a corresponding estimate obtained from a previously-acquired ultrasound image;
• calculating a plurality of features based on the correlation for each decomposed signal;
• classifying, with a machine learning algorithm based on the plurality of features, a thermal state of tissue in the region of interest;
• and
• outputting, via a display device, the thermal state of the tissue.

A system, comprising:

• an ultrasound probe;
• a display device;
• and
• a processor configured with executable instructions in non-transitory memory that when executed cause the processor to:
• acquire, via the ultrasound probe, an ultrasound image;
• select at least one region of interest in the ultrasound image;
• extract features from the at least one region of interest;
• classify a thermal state of tissue in the at least one region of interest based on the features;
• and
• output, via the display device, the thermal state of the tissue.