Ultrasound image reconstruction using back-propagation

A method for imaging an interrogation region of a patient's body using ultrasound comprising the following steps:

• A) generating a pulse of ultrasound by uniformly activating a plurality of transducer elements in a two-dimensional ultrasound transducer, which has a transducer plane, and directing the pulse into the interrogation region;
• B) selecting the transducer plane as a reference plane;
• C) at the reference plane, sensing a time-domain reference return signal that includes back-scattered ultrasound from the interrogation region;
• D) generating an image of the entire interrogation region as a predetermined function of the reference return signal, including the following sub-steps:
• 1) transforming the time-domain reference return signal into the frequency domain as a frequency-domain reference signal by decomposing the reference return signal into a frequency spectrum;
• 2) decomposing the frequency-domain reference signal into an angular spectrum as a decomposed reference signal;
• 3) propagating the decomposed reference signal to at least one additional plane other than the reference plane by multiplying the decomposed reference signal by a predetermined function of the distance between the reference plane and the respective additional plane, thereby forming, for each additional plane, a respective decomposed propagated signal;
• 4) inverse transforming each decomposed propagated signal into a corresponding frequency-domain propagated signal;
• 5) inverse transforming each frequency-domain propagated signal into the time domain as a corresponding time-domain propagated signal;
• and
• 6) converting each time-domain propagated signal into a set of partial image values corresponding to their respective additional planes;
• E) compiling the partial image values into a three-dimensional image;
• and
• F) displaying a selected portion of the three-dimensional image.

A system for imaging an interrogation region of a patient's body using ultrasound comprising:

• an ultrasound transducer that includes a plurality of transducer elements;
• transmission control means for activating the transducer for generating a single pulse of ultrasound and directing the pulse into the interrogation region, the transducer sensing, at a reference plane, a time-domain reference return signal that includes back-scattered ultrasound from the interrogation region;
• back-propagation processing means for generating an image of the entire interrogation region as a predetermined function of a temporal and a spatial decomposition of the reference return signal;
• and
• display means for displaying the image.