Determining attributes using ultrasound

A method, for determining attributes of an animal tissue using acoustic energy, the method comprising:

• receiving acoustic energy that has been reflected from the animal tissue;
• generating an electrical signal from the received acoustic energy;
• processing the electrical signal to determine one or more characteristics of the acoustic energy, the one or more characteristics selected from the group consisting of:
• an amplitude-variations-with-offset characteristic,
• a signal trace characteristic,
• a spatial characteristic, and
• a spectral decomposition characteristic;
• generating one or more sets of values for one or more attributes of said animal tissue based on the one or more characteristics;
• associating each attribute value with one or more voxels in a region of interest in said animal tissue;
• displaying a representation of data points corresponding to at least one of the sets of attribute values the data points displayed at locations determined by the corresponding attribute values;
• receiving user input selecting a subset of the data points;
• performing subsequent analysis on a subset of the voxels corresponding to attribute values corresponding to the selected subset of the data points;
• and
• storing the values of the one or more attributes in a computer storage.

Apparatus for determining one or more attributes of tissue using acoustic energy, the apparatus comprising:

• an acoustic receiver operative to receive acoustic energy that has been reflected from the tissue, and to output an electrical signal based on the received acoustic energy;
• a display;
• a user interface;
• a processor configured to:
• process the signal to determine values for the one or more attributes for each of a plurality of voxels in a region of interest in said tissue;
• display on the display indicia corresponding to the voxels, the indicia displayed at locations that, for at least one dimension, correspond to values of one of the attributes that is associated with the dimension;
• select a subset of the voxels based on the corresponding values for the attribute;
• and
• perform further analysis on the selected subset of the voxels.

A method for determining attributes of an animal tissue using acoustic energy, the method comprising:

• receiving acoustic energy that has been reflected from the animal tissue;
• generating an electrical signal from the received acoustic energy;
• processing the signal to determine values for one or more attributes for each of a plurality of voxels in a region of interest in said animal tissue;
• displaying on the display indicia corresponding to the voxels, the indicia displayed at locations that, for at least one dimension, correspond to values of one of the attributes that is associated with the dimension;
• selecting a subset of the voxels based on the corresponding values for the attribute;
• and
• performing further analysis on the selected subset of the voxels.