Method and means for synthetic structural imaging and volume estimation of biological tissue organs

An acoustic measurement and imaging system comprising:

• a projector for generating low frequency ultrasound signals in a frequency range from about 10 kHz to about 1 MHz to target tissue to generate corresponding tissue echo signatures;
• at least one sensor for detecting said tissue echo signatures from the target tissue and for generating corresponding input data signals;
• at least one preamplifier for signal conditioning the input data signals;
• at least one filter for processing the input data signals;
• a central processor for processing the filtered input data signals based on a set of stored tissue acoustic data and generating at least one output signal;
• and
• graphics structure for generating a graphic representation of the properties of the target tissue from at least one output signal.

A method for acoustic measurement and imaging of target tissue comprising the steps of:

• providing an acoustic measurement and imaging system comprising a projector for generating low frequency ultrasound in target tissue, at least one sensor in communication with the projector for receiving tissue echo signatures generated by the interaction of said target tissue structure with low frequency ultrasound signals from said projector, a central processor in communication with the receiver to determine a low frequency ramp response from said tissue echo signatures, and memory graphics for generating a graphic representation of the target tissue from the low frequency ramp response using an acoustic database of stored tissue data;
• initializing and calibrating the acoustic measurement and imaging system;
• retrieving tissue echo signatures from the acoustic database;
• generating low frequency ultrasound to the target tissue;
• detecting tissue echo signatures using the at least one sensor;
• and
• processing the tissue echo signatures to determine tissue characteristics of the target tissue.

An acoustic measurement and imaging system comprising:

• at least one projector for generating low frequency ultrasound signals in target tissue structure;
• at least one sensor in communication with the projector for receiving tissue echo signatures from various target directions or aspect angles generated by the interaction of said target tissue structure with the low frequency ultrasound signals:
• a central processor in communication with the receiver to compute the target ramp response from said low frequency tissue echo signatures;
• memory graphics for storing a three-dimensional representation of the target tissue structure from the target ramp response and storing estimated target property values, using an acoustic database of stored tissue data;
• and
• whereby the target's echo signature is used to compute the physical optics approximation of the target's ramp response, which is directly proportional to the target cross-sectional area (profile) function along the direction of propagation of the incident acoustic field and a volume estimate obtained from the integral of the profile function, with both metrics used as the input data for target image reconstruction and target classification by the central processor.