Doppler ultrasound method and apparatus for monitoring blood flow
AssigneeSpentech, Inc.
InventorMark A. Moehring
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A pulse Doppler ultrasound system and associated methods are described for monitoring blood flow. A graphical information display includes simultaneously displayed depth-mode and spectrogram displays. The depth-mode display indicates the various positions along the ultrasound beam axis at which blood flow is detected. These positions are indicated as one or more colored regions, with the color indicating direction of blood flow and varying in intensity as a function of detected Doppler ultrasound signal amplitude or detected blood flow velocity. The depth-mode display also includes a pointer whose position may be selected by a user. The spectrogram displayed corresponds to the location identified by the pointer. Embolus detection and characterization are also provided.
Claims74
A Doppler ultrasound system for providing blood flow information of a subject, the sytem comprising:
- an ultrasound transducer from which ultrasound signals are emitted into the subject along an ultrasound beam axis;
- an ultrasound receiver detecting echo signals resulting from the ultrasound signals emitted into the subject;
- an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit coupled to the ultrasound receiver to quantize the echo signals received by the ultrasound receiver into digital sample values;
- a digital signal processor coupled to the ADC circuit for processing the digital sample values to calculate blood flow velocity data and detected Doppler signal power data as functions of time for a plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis;
- a graphical display;
- and
- a display controller coupled to the digital signal processor and the graphical display for controlling the graphical display to display blood flow velocity data and detected Doppler signal power data as a graphical image representative of blood flow detected along the ultrasound beam axis as a function of time, the graphical image having a color at each of the locations along the ultrasound beam axis for which data is displayed based on the blood flow velocity data and the color having a color property that varies based on the detected Doppler signal power data.
A data processing engine for a Doppler ultrasound system having an ultrasound transducer from which ultrasound signals are emitted into the subject along an ultrasound beam axis, an ultrasound receiver detecting echo signals resulting from the ultrasound signals emitted into the subject, and a color graphical display, the data processing engine comprising:
- an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit coupled to the ultrasound receiver to quantize the echo signals received by the ultrasound receiver into digital sample values, the digital sample values stored as sample vectors;
- a digital signal processor coupled to the ADC circuit for processing the digital sample vectors to calculate blood flow data and detected Doppler signal power data as functions of time for a plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis;
- and
- a display controller coupled to the digital signal processor and the graphical display for controlling the graphical display to display the blood flow data and the detected Doppler signal power data as a graphical image representative of the blood flow detected along the ultrasound beam axis as a function of time, the graphical image having a color at each of the locations for which data is displayed based on the blood flow data and the color having a color property that varies based on the detected Doppler signal power data.
A Doppler ultrasound system for providing blood flow information for a subject, the Doppler ultrasound system comprising:
- an ultrasound transducer from which ultrasound signals are emitted into the subject along an ultrasound beam axis;
- an ultrasound receiver detecting echo signals resulting from the ultrasound signal emitted into the subject;
- an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit coupled to the ultrasound receiver to quantize the echo signals received by the ultrasound receiver into digital sample values;
- a digital mixing circuit coupled to the ADC for processing the digital sample values to calculate data representative of quadrature vectors;
- digital filtering circuitry coupled to the digital mixing circuit for processing the data representative of the quadrature vectors to calculate filtered quadrature vector data representative of the quadrature vectors having noise from outside a bandwidth of interest removed;
- clutter removal circuitry coupled to the digital filtering circuitry for processing the filtered quadrature vector data to calculate clutter cancelled vector data representative of the filtered quadrature vector data having contribution from stationary reflectors removed;
- a digital signal processor coupled to the clutter removal circuitry for processing the clutter cancelled vector data to calculate blood flow data representative of blood flow information as a function of time for a plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis, the blood flow data including detected Doppler signal power data;
- and
- a blood locator display coupled to the digital signal processor, the blood locator display having display driver circuitry for processing the blood flow data to display blood flow information as color regions corresponding to the plurality of locations along an ultrasound beam axis at which blood flow is detected as a function of time, the color of the color region based on the blood flow data and having a color property that is varied as a function of the detected Doppler signal power data.
In a Doppler ultrasound system emitting pulsed ultrasound signals along an ultrasound beam axis and detecting echo signals resulting therefrom, a method for providing blood flow information of a subject to which the Doppler ultrasound system is applied, the method comprising:
- for each pulse of ultrasound, quantizing the detected echo signals to generate a plurality of digital sample values representative of the echo signals;
- processing digital sample values of the pulses of ultrasound to calculate data representative of blood flow information as a function of time including detected Doppler signal power data for a plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis;
- displaying the data representative of the blood flow information for the plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis as a function of time, the blood flow information displayed as having an associated color at each of the plurality of locations, the associated color having a color property that varies based on the detected Doppler signal power data.
In a Doppler ultrasound system emitting ultrasound signals along an ultrasound beam axis and detecting echo signal resulting therefrom, a method for providing blood flow information of a subject to which the Doppler ultrasound system is applied, the method comprising:
- quantizing the detected echo signals to generate a plurality of digital sample values representative of the echo signals;
- generating quadrature vectors from the plurality of digital sample values;
- processing the quadrature vectors to calculate blood flow data and detected Doppler signal power data as functions of time for a plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis;
- displaying the blood flow data and the detected Doppler signal power data as a graphical image representative of blood flow detected along the ultrasound beam axis as a function of time, the detected blood flow displayed as having a color at each of the locations for which data is displayed based on the blood flow data and the color having a color property based on the detected Doppler signal power data.
A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for controlling digital processing circuitry in a Doppler ultrasound system to process detected ultrasound echo signals and provide blood flow information, by:
- controlling an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit to quantize the detected ultrasound echo signals to generate a plurality of digital sample values representative of the ultrasound echo signal;
- generating quadrature vectors from the plurality of digital sample values;
- processing the quadrature vectors to calculate blood flow data as a function of time including detected Doppler signal power data for a plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis;
- and
- processing the blood flow data for display as a function of time for the plurality of locations along the ultrasound beam axis, the blood flow data displayed as having an associated color at each of the plurality of locations indicative of blood flow velocity and the associated color having a color property based on the detected Doppler signal power data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.