Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system transducer array with multiline patches

• US 20020045830A1
• Filed: 07/19/2001
• Published: 04/18/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Powers, Jeffry E., Averkiou, Michalakis, Entrekin, Robert R., Roundhill, David N., Bruce, Matthew, Schwartz, Gary Allen, Skyba, Danny M., Fraser, John D., Robinson, Brent Stephen, Cooley, Clifford R., Pesque, Patrick Rene?apos;
• Granted Patent: US 6,471,652 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/459
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/06 Measuring blood flow measuring volume flow in general G01F, e.g. G01F1/66, G01F1/72; measuring speed of fluids in general G01P5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0883 for diagnosis of the heart
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0891 for diagnosis of blood vessels
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4472 Wireless probes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/481 involving the use of contrast agent, e.g. microbubbles introduced into the bloodstream analysis of echo signal exploiting properties of a contrast enhancer in devices for short-range imaging with acoustic waves G01S7/52039
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/483 involving the acquisition of a 3D volume of data
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/543 involving acquisition triggered by a physiological signal
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8918 the array being linear
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8925 the array being a two-dimensional transducer configuration, i.e. matrix or orthogonal linear arrays
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/894 by rotation about a single axis
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8963 using pulse inversion
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8979 Combined Doppler and pulse-echo imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8993 Three dimensional imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52025 for pulse systems G01S7/52034 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52074 Composite displays, e.g. split-screen displays; Combination of multiple images or of images and alphanumeric tabular information
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/5208 with integration of processing functions inside probe or scanhead
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52095 using multiline receive beamforming
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/341 Circuits therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 128/916 Ultrasound 3-D imaging

Abstract

An ultrasonic imaging method and apparatus are described for imaging the coronary arteries of the heart. The vascular system is infused with an ultrasonic contrast agent. A volumetric region of the heart wall including a coronary artery is three dimensionally scanned. A projection image of the volumetric region is produced from the scanning, providing a two dimensional contrast image of the coronary artery with the appearance of an angiogram. Preferably the coronary artery signals are segmented from contrast signals emanating from the myocardium and the heart blood pool so that the coronary arteries are clearly highlighted and distinct in the ultrasonic angiogram.

Claims

1. An ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead comprising:

a scanhead enclosure;

an array of transducer elements extending in at least two dimensions, located in the scanhead enclosure, and exhibiting a plurality of groupings (patches) of localized elements;

a plurality of microbeamformers, located in the scanhead enclosure and coupled to the patches, each of which acts to beamform the signals received by the elements of a patch to produce at least two differently steered receive beams (multilines) from one set of received echo signals.

2. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 1, wherein each microbeamformer further includes at least two summing points at which simultaneously produced multilines are available.

3. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 1, wherein said array of transducer elements comprises a two dimensional array;

and wherein each patch comprises a sub-aperture of the two dimensional array which is capable of receiving signals for multiple scanlines in the field of a transmit beam.

4. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 3, wherein each microbeamformer acts to produce two or more differently steered signals from a sub-aperture patch.

5. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 4, wherein each microbeamformer steers received multilines to be far enough apart to support the creation of interspaced interpolated lines.

6. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 5, wherein each microbeamformer steers received multilines to be within the beamwidth of a nominally steered beam.

7. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 1, wherein the array of transducer elements exhibits a rectilinear geometry, and wherein each microbeamformer produces at least four scanlines from a set of received echo signals.

8. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 7, wherein the four scanlines comprise multilines spatially arranged in a quadrature relationship about a nominal steering direction.

9. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 1, wherein the array of transducer elements exhibits a triangular-based geometry, and wherein each microbeamformer produces at least three scanlines from a set of received echo signals.

10. The ultrasonic diagnostic scanhead of claim 9, wherein the three scanlines comprise multilines spatially arranged in evenly spaced angles of rotation in a plane normal to a nominal steering direction.

11. In an ultrasound system, an ultrasonic scanhead having an array of transducer elements extending in at least two dimensions and arranged in sub-aperture patches of localized elements, each patch being coupled to a microbeamformer in the scanhead which acts to beamform the echo signals received by the patch, a method for producing multiple scanlines in response to a single transmit event comprising:

transmitting ultrasonic energy from elements of the array;

receiving a sequence of echo signals in response to the transmitted energy at the elements of a plurality of sub-aperture patches; and

forming multiple differently steered scanlines in a microbeamformer for each patch from the sequence of echo signals received at the respective patch.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

coupling the multiple steered scanlines of a plurality of patches to an ultrasound system beamformer; and

processing the multiple steered scanlines of the patches to produce a plurality of multilines in response to the transmit event.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

coupling the multiple steered scanlines of a plurality of patches to an ultrasound system processor; and

interpolating the multiple steered scanlines of the patches to produce a plurality of scanlines in response to the transmit event.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein forming comprises producing three multilines spatially arranged in evenly spaced angles of rotation in a plane normal to a nominal steering direction.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein forming comprises producing four multilines spatially arranged in a quadrature relationship about a nominal steering direction.

17. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 16, wherein the array transducer exhibits a triangular-based element geometry, and wherein each microbeamformer produces at least three multilines from a set of received echo signals produced by the elements of a patch.

18. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 16, wherein the array transducer exhibits a rectilinear element geometry, and wherein each microbeamformer produces at least four multilines from a set of received echo signals produced by the elements of a patch.

19. The ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system of claim 16, wherein the ultrasound system further comprises an interpolator responsive to the patch multilines for producing interpolated scanlines.

16. An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system comprising:

a scanhead having a two dimensional array transducer, the elements of which are grouped into patches of localized elements during echo reception, and a plurality of microbeamformers each coupled to a patch which act to produce multiple, differently steered multilines for the patch in response to a single transmit event;

a signal transmission device coupled to the microbeamformers; and

an ultrasound system having a beamformer coupled to the signal transmission device which acts to beamform a plurality of multilines from the patch multilines.